Welcome to Friday’s Featured Female!

Friday's Featured Female, #FFF

This weekly series features inspirational stories from admirable women.  IMHO, it’s always good to be reminded of how strength, determination, hard work, heart and ingenuity can impact the quality of one’s life and I’m proud that these women will allow me to share their stories here.

I’m exceptionally thrilled to have Heather@It’s A Lovely Life here today.  Heather and I met briefly at my first Bloggy Boot Camp in Las Vegas  in 2012 and even though we only spent a short time together, we hit it off instantly.  Through social media, we’ve become friends and have discovered we both share passion for all things 80’s (as all smart people in the world seem to do).  Heather is not only sweet, smart and dedicated, she’s got a great heart.  She even asked me to appear on her blog today so after you read this post, pop over to It’s A Lovely Life and see what 80’s song has been one of my motivating forces (hint: It is NOT a Duran Duran song) and on that note, I ask….

Sooo, have you met Heather?

Hello! I’m Heather Reese from It’s a Lovely Life! I’m so excited that Melissa invited me to be a part of Friday’s Featured Female. I’ve been following along on all the awesome women that she has featured and I’m totally honored that she asked me to participate! So cool!

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Melissa and I share a love of 80’s music and I pretty much knew I wanted her as a friend within seconds of meeting way back at a blogging conference in 2012! We were only talking for a few minutes when she made a reference to an 80’s song and we’ve been friends since then! I’m always super inspired and motivated by Melissa’s dedication to healthy eating and exercise!  She makes it all look easy and she reminds me that no matter how busy you are {she is one of the busiest people I know} there is always time to take care of yourself.

I love how Melissa is sharing A-ha moments. I had a pretty big one myself a few years ago and I love to talk about how life changing it was. It’s not only changed my outlook on life, it’s also shaped me into the person that I am today and motivates me to help others. 

Back in 2009 I was in a pretty sad place emotionally. We had been trying to have a third child for over 3 years and after many rounds of IVF and too many miscarriages to mention I was slowly dying on the inside. My spirit and my body were both tired and broken. I was watching the world through eyes that could only see pain and not joy. I was not the mother to my surviving children that I needed to be and I had stopped caring about my physical wellness. I had accepted that my body was damaged and I didn’t make getting healthy a priority. 

One day I looked in the mirror and decided I was done being sad. I wanted to find joy again. I wanted to be the mother and wife that my family deserved. Life is for the living and I intended to start living again.

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I had to train my mind to focus on the good. I had to stop stressing about all that can go wrong and I had to celebrate all that can and did go right. Three months after I changed my attitude my life changed in a way I could have never imagined. We were able to grow our family and add that third baby of our dreams via domestic adoption. I was there the second our daughter was born and I’ve been her Momma ever since.

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This never would have happened with a bad attitude. It just wouldn’t have.


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I understand my journey now. I appreciate all that I had to go through to get to this point. It was all worth it. It’s still a daily battle to keep positive, but it gets easier everyday. All I have to do when I start to go down a path of negativity is to remember all the good that has come from staying positive. I also remember that negativity never helps a situation. It just steals joy from today.

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I now spend my days motivating others to be the best they can be. To never give up and to stay positive. I surround myself with others that are happy and I remember how far I’ve come…

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