Chronicles of Chronic Ills (AYA Coci Coaching)

A Path Through, Not Around

Life coaching for chronic illness warriors — four stages, moving at whatever pace your body and life actually allow

Anna is an educator that has gone through her own journey with multiple chronic illnesses that took her out of the classroom. After years of treatments (both western medicine and holistic healing methods) as well as therapy, she has committed herself to helping other chronic illness warriors find their path through their own chronic illness journey.

Learn more about Anna’s Journey here

Note: This is coaching, not clinical care. It won’t replace your medical team or a therapist — it exists alongside them, focused on the parts of this journey that those appointments don’t usually make room for: Your daily life, your identity, your sense of what’s still possible.

Not Sure How To Start?

I realized through my own chronic illness journey that there are multiple stages that I went through (spiraling, not linear). As such, I created a chronic illness coaching curriculum that addresses each stage. Read each stage below. Whichever feels most true right now is your starting point — you can always let us know if you need to change.

Stage 1: Relax & Refocus

Whether you’re newly diagnosed, in crisis mode, or feeling like your body jus threw you off a cliff – even if you’ve lived with this for years and something just knocked you back to square one, this stage is a good place for everyone.

When I left the classroom, at times the hardest part wasn’t the symptoms themselves – it was how loud everything got in my head. The fear, the googling, the grief for the life I thought I was going to have. This stage isn’t about fixing anything. It’s about getting your nervous system out of fight/flight/freeze mode enough that you can actually think again.

Here we slow down. We figure out what today actually requires of you – not what your old life demanded, not what you think you “should” be doing. Whether you were born with this condition or have lived with it for years, this stage might show up again after a new flare, a new diagnosis stacked on top, or just a season where everything feels too loud or too much. I often come back to tools in this stage to relax my nervous system and refocus on the present moment.

Stage 2: Release & Reset

You might be here if you’re carrying something heavy – exhaustion, resentment, the grief of a life you didn’t choose – and you’re running on empty.

By the time people reach this stage, the crisis has usually quieted down, but something else has taken its place: the weight of everything you’ve been carrying. This is often where grief lives – not just grief for a diagnosis, but for missed years, changed relationships, or a version of yourself you had to let go of.

This stage is about learning what you’re actually holding onto, and starting to release it – resentment toward your body, toward people who don’t understand, toward the timeline you thought your life would follow. We also look at your daily rhythm: what’s sustainable, what’s just survival mode dressed up as routine, and how to reset so you’re not just running on empty. I have to come back to this stage to release things that have arisen even now, and I’m excited to share the tools I’ve learned- to notice, acknowledge, let go, and reset.

Stage 3: Reframe & Rebuild

At this stage you may be stable, but still telling yourself the old story about who you are. This is the stage where the crisis has passed and the heaviest grief has loosened its grip – but you notice you’re still living inside a version of yourself that no longer fits. Maybe it’s the story that you’re “less than” because your body doesn’t work the way it used to, or how other’s do. Maybe it’s still measuring your days against who you were before, instead of who you’re becoming now.

Here we look closely at the narrative you’ve been carrying – the one that says what you can’t do, what you’ve lost, what’s “broken.” We start rebuilding it on ground that’s actually solid: not denial, not forced positivity, but an honest identity that includes your illness without being defined entirely by it. This is often where I see the biggest shifts – the moment someone stops apologizing for who they are now and starts building from there instead. I too often catch myself trying to live from my old belief system, and need to take time to reframe it into what is good and true now.

Stage 4: Reignite & Reimagine

At this stage we are ready to look toward what’s next. You’re not fighting to survive the day anymore, and you’re no longer carrying the old story about who you should be. What’s left is a question a lot of people haven’t had space to ask in a long time: now what?

This is where the work of vocation and purpose live. You don’t have to build a whole new career or reinvent yourself overnight, but chronic illness has a way of clarifying what actually matters to you. We look at what excites you, what feels possible now, and how to move toward it at a pace your body can sustain.

I realized that while I couldn’t teach in a classroom anymore, I could continue with my passion of helping others. Now it is by helping others who are going through the same transitions chronic illness has brought into my life. I’m so excited to come alongside you and help you reignite passing and reimagine life.