Full Circle: A 25-Year Reflection on Health, Healing, Detours, and Fully Living

As I reflect on the last 25 years — and especially this past year — I can see how my education, my work, my health journey, and my personal healing have all been quietly guiding me toward the same place.

This year didn’t start something new.It brought me full circle.

Where It Began: Food, Curiosity, and Not Understanding My Body

My interest in health began long before it was academic. As a teenager and young adult, I struggled with food, body awareness, and understanding how my body actually worked. I didn’t yet have the language for hormones, nervous systems, or mental health — I just knew something felt off, and I assumed that was normal.

In 2002, during my undergraduate degree in Human Nutrition Sciences, I thought I wanted to become a dietitian. Nutrition felt tangible. It felt like a way to help people. And it felt personal — because I was still trying to understand myself.

What I didn’t yet realize was that my curiosity wasn’t just about food.It was about why we behave the way we do, why change is difficult, and why information alone doesn’t always lead to health.

Health Promotion, Psychiatry, and the Science of Change

That curiosity led me to pursue a Master’s degree in Health Promotion. I wanted to understand how people change — the stages of change, behavior adoption, and how to create, implement, and evaluate programs that genuinely support prevention and long-term wellbeing.

I didn’t want wellness to just sound good.I wanted it to work.

Around this time, I also considered careers in psychiatry and family medicine. I was drawn to primary prevention, communication, and the relational side of healthcare — the space where listening, understanding, and early support matter just as much as diagnosis.

I was also beginning to recognize my own mental health — something I had normalized and ignored for years, assuming everyone felt the same way.

We all carry burdens.We all struggle at different points.And I was just beginning to understand my own.

Music, Movement, and Finding My Place

I’ve always loved music and movement, but I was never drawn to traditional sports. Maybe because I never felt particularly confident in my athletic abilities. Competitive environments didn’t feel like they were built for me, and movement often felt intimidating rather than inviting.

That changed with my first step class.

It completely shifted my definition of movement. I realized there truly is something for everyone — and for me, group fitness was it.

Group fitness became the place where I felt at home. Comfortable. Safe. Included.

Movement didn’t require perfection or performance. It required presence, rhythm, and connection. Being guided by music and moving alongside others — without comparison or pressure — changed everything.

Looking back now, it makes perfect sense.That feeling of belonging is still the foundation of the spaces I create today.

Women’s Wellness, BRCA2+, and Listening to My Body

Over time, my work naturally evolved toward women’s wellness — because women’s bodies, hormones, mental health, and life transitions are complex, under-supported, and often misunderstood.

Then came my BRCA2+ journey.

That diagnosis changed how I listened to my body. Prevention, risk, and choice stopped being theoretical. Surgery, recovery, mobility changes, and nervous system safety became lived experiences.

Movement shifted from being optional to being essential — but only if it was intelligent, respectful, and adaptive.

Perimenopause: When Knowledge Became Personal

Around the time of my BRCA2+ diagnosis, I also began noticing changes in my body that felt familiar — yet different. Subtle at first, and then loud.

More anxiety — which I could finally name.A persistent feeling of overwhelm.Brain fog.Exhaustion that rest didn’t fully resolve.

I had a foundational understanding from my education — enough to recognize hormones were involved — but I quickly realized that academic knowledge wasn’t enough. I needed to understand what was happening personally, not just clinically.

At the same time, I was seeing more and more women in my nutrition practice experiencing the same symptoms. Many were being dismissed. Many were being told it was stress, aging, or something they simply had to push through.

Becoming a Holistic Perimenopause & Menopause Coach gave me the depth I was seeking. It offered a framework to understand hormone archetypes — the what, the why, and the how behind these changes — and, most importantly, tangible tools: personalized protocols, practical lifestyle and nutrition guidance, nervous system support, and movement recommendations that adapt to hormonal shifts.

Perimenopause wasn’t a detour in my work.It was another layer of clarity.

This Year: The Loud Moments

This year held some very loud moments — moments that shook my routines, challenged my mindset, and required me to slow down and re-evaluate how I care for myself.

Progressing perimenopause brought symptoms that were impossible to ignore. A preventive double mastectomyreshaped not only my body, but my relationship with recovery, strength, and patience.

At the same time, I found myself reimagining my business — not from a place of growth for growth’s sake, but from alignment. I began building something to support a growing community of women who need exactly what I need.

These experiences didn’t pull me away from my work.They refined it.

Why Pilates — and Why Neu Pilates

Becoming Pilates certified wasn’t about collecting credentials. It was about finding a movement method that respected the body I now lived in.

I chose to train first in mat Pilates and then reformer through Neu Pilates because of their physiotherapy-based approach. The emphasis on biomechanics, alignment, rehabilitation, and nervous system awareness mattered deeply to me — especially while navigating surgery, injury risk, and long-term mobility.

Pilates met me where I was:

• rebuilding trust in my body

• restoring mobility

• creating strength without punishment

• honoring recovery instead of rushing it

It aligned with everything I believe movement should be — intentional, adaptive, and intelligent.

Fascia: The Next Layer

As my movement practice deepened, my curiosity expanded into fascia — the connective tissue system that links everything together.

Fascia tells a story.It reflects injury, surgery, stress, and movement patterns.It holds memory, restriction, and potential.

This feels like the next layer of knowledge I want to add — especially for women navigating pain, post-surgical recovery, and limited mobility. Fascia isn’t separate from nutrition, hormones, or mental health. It’s part of the same system.

Nothing in the body exists in isolation.

Coming Full Circle: A Rural Studio and a Community Space

Opening my rural Pilates studio wasn’t just a business decision. It was a culmination.

It brought together nutrition, health promotion, prevention, movement, education, lived experience, and community.

It became a space where women can move safely, ask questions, reconnect with their bodies, and feel supported — not pressured.

This year, my perspective is different. It’s quieter. Clearer. More rooted.

I’m not chasing credentials to prove something.I’m layering knowledge intentionally.I’m honoring recovery, curiosity, and sustainability.

And I’m building spaces that reflect how real health actually unfolds — slowly, imperfectly, and in community.

Where This Comes Together: The Hormone Harmony Hub

Everything I’ve shared here — the education, the detours, the lived experience, the questions, the rebuilding — is what led to the creation of the Hormone Harmony Hub.

The Hub is not about fixing yourself or chasing perfect routines. It’s a space built for real women in real bodies, navigating hormone shifts, recovery, movement, and mental health — sometimes all at once.

It’s where nutrition, Pilates, strength, hormone education, and community come together in a way that’s practical, supportive, and sustainable. A place to learn why your body is changing, what you can do about it, and how to move forward with confidence — without pressure or overwhelm.

I created the Hormone Harmony Hub because it’s what I needed — and what I saw so many women needing too.

A home.A space.A community.

Looking Ahead: Detours, Momentum, and Fully Living

I don’t expect 2026 to be linear.

I love a good detour — the kind that makes you pause, reflect, rethink, and sometimes take a chance. The kind that comes with an adrenaline rush of excitement and possibility. The what could be.

Last year was the Year of the Snake — a year associated with shedding, transformation, intuition, and deep internal work. Snakes symbolize renewal through release. Looking back, that symbolism fits perfectly. It was a year of molting old identities, routines, and expectations — a year that required patience and trust while something new took shape beneath the surface.

This year is the Year of the Horse.

The Horse represents forward movement, vitality, courage, freedom, and momentum. It’s a year that favors purposeful action — not reckless speed, but aligned motion. A year of trusting your instincts and moving toward what feels true after a period of deep internal change.

After a year of rebuilding, recovering, and reimagining, this feels like the natural next step.

So I’m not chasing linear progress.I’m choosing curiosity over certainty.Momentum over perfection.And alignment over urgency.

And this year, I challenge you to fully live.

To listen to your body.To take the detour.To honor both the pause and the push.To move toward what lights you up — even if you can’t see the entire path yet.

Because living well isn’t about getting it “right.”It’s about being present for the journey.

In Health

Brigitte ~