Michelle Ford: She Lost Herself While Saving Everyone Else

About this episode

Michelle Ford shares her journey from being an overwhelmed single mom to creating a wellness program after a health crisis.

What happens when a woman spends decades trying to be everything to everyone, and her body finally says, “No more”? That’s the heart of the conversation between Walt, Anne Marie, and wellness guide Michelle, built around Michelle’s journey from overwhelmed, type‑A single mom to creator of the Holy Well program and the six dimensions of wellness . Michelle described growing up as a classic overachiever with type A parents, then becoming a single mom to two boys just 14 months apart while trying to be the perfect mother, daughter, colleague, and friend. Eventually, her health broke down, leading to an autoimmune diagnosis that forced a reckoning: “Something had to change, I was trying to be everything to everybody, and my health was what suffered.” That crisis pushed her back to her public health roots and to a powerful framework: the six dimensions of wellness - physical, social, spiritual, emotional, occupational, and intellectual. Instead of seeing life as random chaos, she began to see it as a “giant game of whack‑a‑mole” where different parts of us pop up depleted at different times. Walt pressed into the deeper side of this: Walt asked: “What role do you see those inner world…

People in this episode

Host: Walt Thiessen

Guest: Michelle Ford

Topics covered

• wellness
• self-care
• health
• motherhood
• personal growth
• autoimmune disease

Keywords

• wellness
• type A
• autoimmune
• motherhood
• health crisis
• dimensions of wellness
• self improvement

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Holy Well program

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