COURTESY CATHERINE VALDIVIESO
business spotlight
Catherine Valdivieso
FROM “PANICKY”
to “Cushy”
The Story of Cushy Yoga Creator Catherine Valdivieso
COURTESY CATHERINE VALDIVIESO
BY IJY STAFF
I
magine suffering from such severe panic attacks that you couldn’t function during the day. You couldn’t keep a job. The only thing that kept you going was your kids. That was the existence that Catherine Valdivieso lived for over ten years, from 2008 to 2018. Catherine said, “I suffered from severe anxiety and panic disorder. I tried to do it alone for 10 years.” She tried acupuncture, conventional medicine, and nothing seemed to work. She had almost daily trips to the ER, with her heart racing at 180 beats per minute. As a single mother of three sons, she added, “and you can imagine what the hospital bills were like! It just added MORE stress and anxiety to my life.”
ABC’s “Dancing with the Stars,” Oksana Platero
After trying virtually everything during this ten-year span, she finally decided she needed someone to help and guide her. So, she hired a life coach that specialized in anxiety. The very first item that the life coach worked on with Catherine was to change her diet to a plant based, organic diet. The second thing was that the life coach introduced breath work and meditation, and yoga. Within
12 IT'S JUST YOGA MAGAZINE | CENTRAL FLORIDA | FALL/Winter 2019
