Introduction

At one point, my personality halved itself.

Here’s the nutshell version: At first I made money in the music business as a singer-songwriter, then I didn’t. Music was all I wanted to do, it was my identity. But at some point the money wasn’t enough and I  had to find something else (at 30 years old) to sustain me financially. I became a yoga teacher (and eventually a personal trainer and plant-based diet consultant.) I was absolutely passionate about health and my new job paid the bills. A perfect ending! But not quite, the singer-songwriter was still lurking, holding tight to the ledge of “making it.”

This is how I became disjointed and began to sever into two parts. I was the singer-songwriter, and the health coach. I did not know how to merge the two identities within myself or out in the world at large so I kept them separate (imagine a boxing ref holding apart two fighters.) It was exhausting. In a world where it seemed increasingly important to define one’s self with a mere word or two, I suffered. For instance, on my Instagram account, was I songwriter or health coach? The question kept at me like a rash.

This experience of “dual” tortured me for 20 years. Then, one day somewhat recently, I began to write about this split. I had written about my life before, once for years in a blog that had been sort-of popular back in the mid-aughts. It felt exhilarating to come back to writing- like finding a lost friend. I found myself thinking about past traumas and writing about their silver linings. It soon came to me that I wanted to share these writings as I once had years ago but I didn’t know where to start.

I called upon a few writer acquaintances for their two cents. They brainstormed. One of them, a successful writer in the Big Apple, came up with the idea of starting a blog on Substack. BUT, he warned, make sure you have a theme for what you want to share. You need a specific framework for which an audience will come to you. A reason.

I felt sick realizing once again I was faced with the idea of having to choose a
f-ing theme for my passions. A header for who I was. A recognizable and dependable box that contained my offerings. A few days passed as I tried to wrangle it- again. My husband joined in as we struggled to come up with a framework. The gist of “singer-songwriter turned personal trainer” was one idea. Stupid. I acted agreeable but then went to bed at 6:30 p.m. resigned to the fact that nothing would encapsulate my overall purpose in life. I lay in bed and cried about it off and on for a few hours while simultaneously watching a British crime series (it helps most any upset.)

The next morning, fresh on coffee, I decided to email my kind and patient writer acquaintance and regurgitate all my feelings on him. I had nothing to lose, except his help. I wrote my truth: I want to write about everything from kale to the resolutions of my traumas. I want to talk about being a songwriter and my scars from being in the music business. I will likely include pieces on my family as well.  AND- people look to me for health related things, as I’m a personal trainer and health coach in my day job. So... I want the freedom to write about ALL I know ..but my niche ends up being ..what?

He wrote back immediately: This is all very powerful, Cory. In a way what you're talking about is a platform that's devoted to: healing. 

My common thread. He had found it. All my many songs had been, in some form, about healing or the courageous paths to healing. My work as a health coach was certainly all about healing. And my pull to write again was coming from a desire to heal as well- to bring into focus the parts of my past I had never quite come to terms with.

So here we are. Within this blog I will share through the lens of my education as personal trainer, yoga instructor and plant-based diet consultant. But also physiologically and emotionally, illustrated through my own personal stories and music. Once in a while what I write may edge on humorous. Other times informational, sometimes emotional. But all of it will be encapsulated under the umbrella of the word my dear acquaintance came upon for me- just that solitary word, the one that glued me together.