Life + Health Dream

If you could reinvent yourself, where would you go? Over the past two chaotic years, many of us have asked ourselves that question, and some have come up with compelling answers — leaving careers, finding love, going back to school. No matter how big or small a change you want to make, these stories may inspire you to set off on your own journey.

s the pandemic descended, my husband and kids and I —like much of the world had one focus: survival. But two years later, with most of COVID-19’s most stressful moments behind us (we hoped), we decided to make some changes. Instead of simply reverting to our pre-

COVID schedule, we reimag- ined our time, dialing back the kids’ activity schedule and spending our downtime together hiking, playing board games and cooking.

My husband and I committed to working less at night and on weekends. These changes weren’t easy, but now, more than halfway through the year, I’ve learned that it’s these everyday moments that bind us together.

Based on the latest data, my family is in good company. In addition to subtle shifts like those we implemented, research suggests that people across the globe are making big changes in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Workers have quit their jobs at historic rates; some have started new businesses.

In an independent survey conducted by the Good Housekeeping Institute, an overwhelming majority of respondents (84%) said they had made changes to their health, careers, spirituality or relationships in the past two years. The shifts ranged from revamping diets (44%) and workout regimens (40%) to starting a spiritual practice (21%) to spending more time with family (61%).

“With the pandemic, we had to shelter in place, slow down and contemplate,” says Judith Orloff, M.D., a psychiatrist in Santa Monica, CA, and the author of The Empath’s Survival Guide. “That forced reflection caused many of us to ask ourselves, How can I create a life that better suits my needs?” At the same time, the pandemic reminded us that life is short—and it coaxed us to reprioritize.

Plus, humans often feel an itch to do something when there’s complete stillness

(as during the pandemic). “There’s this notion that if they’re feeling anxious, there must be something threatening around,” says Simon A. Rego, Psy.D., chief psychologist at Montefiore Medical Center/Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City. “People forget that their emotions are being influenced and inflated by their circumstances and history.”

Dr. Orloff insists that no one should feel pressured to make changes: “Instead, quiet your mind and ask yourself, Am I happy? How can I tweak my life so I can have more happiness and more love? Does the choice I’m making (or not making) feel good? What are the benefits of the change, and do those outweigh the costs of the disruptions?”

When you’ve settled on the answers, you’ll be better equipped to either make the necessary shifts or recognize that staying the course is good for your body and soul.

As for my family and me, we stayed put despite an itch to move. But we also dug a hole in our backyard for a pool— a hole our pandemic puppy can’t wait to dive into.

—Amy Paturel, M.S., M.P.H.

Read on for stories of transformation from people around the country.

Reinvent Yourself!

For more inspiring stories, simple how-tos and more, scan here.

Prepandemic, Nicole Fauls’s business, Urban Allure Events, put on 150 weddings a year. But in all of 2020, the number was just 12. To avoid laying off her seven employees, Fauls did something unexpected: In October 2020, she took herself off the payroll and took a full-time job with a veterinary company. “I let my team run everything,” she says. The plan worked. Now Urban Allure has more celebrations on the books than ever, and Nicole returned as boss this past March.

What pushed you to make this change?

I didn’t want to let anybody go, because our company is built on relationships with our couples, and we had to reschedule 85 to 90 weddings in a super-short amount of time. But I said, “I can step away.”

What did you learn?

Working with a big corporate team taught me new ways of leading and listening to others. While the type A in me is like, “You do things a certain way,” I’ve learned to allow my team to take on more responsibility.

I’ve also learned that I don’t want work to dictate who I am. I’m trying to bring that back into the culture of our company as well, giving people unlimited PTO and being mindful of their work-life balance.

Any regrets?

I could have been more thoughtful about how to transition smoothly back to my business. But I’m a no-regrets kind of person. Looking back on it, I think this decision saved my business and saved me during the pandemic. —as told to Melody Warnick

For more information about Nicole’s company, go to urbanallureevents.com.

TOMIKA ANDERSON, 46, WOODBRIDGE, VA

During COVID, project manager Tomika Anderson decided that it was time to projectmanage her way into marriage. “The pandemic gave me the time to be more strategic around how to navigate online dating and get to know people,” says the single mom of a 9-year-old. “I really did it like a job.” Her hard work —  sometimes she’d go on four dates in a weekend —  paid off when she matched with a single dad named Michael in February 2021. Now they’re planning their wedding in Turks and Caicos.

What pushed you to make this change? I had kind of flirted with online dating off and on over the years, but during COVID I was like, “Let me develop a system to apply some of the same standards I have for my work and my teams to my dating.” With Bumble prospects, I would message them, then have a phone call, then a FaceTime call, and then we’d schedule a date.

What did you learn? To be clear. On our first date, I told Michael exactly what I was looking for, basically seeing if I had to weed him out. I said, “I don’t want to leave this area. I want someone who’s not a stranger to therapy. I have a travel business, so I need to be with someone who’s going to be able to do that with me. And I want to be married.” And he was like, “Check, check, check, check.”

Any regrets? I used to tell myself things like Who are you to strive for that? I had to become a better steward of my mindset so I didn’t count myself out for the things I most wanted in life. A lot of people would have given up at 45 on finding the love of their life, but I am the happiest I’ve ever been, and it’s largely because I didn’t give up. —as told to Melody Warnick

The Relocator

DAPHNE OZ 36, EMMY AWARD–WINNING TELEVISION HOST AND NEW YORK TIMES BEST-SELLING AUTHOR

For nearly a decade, New York City was the center of Daphne Oz’s personal and professional life. Using her culinary degree and her training in integrative nutrition, she served as a cohost on the daytime talk shows The Chew and The Good Dish and was a featured lifestyle expert on her father’s show, The Dr. Oz Show, and a judge on Fox’s MasterChef Junior. She and her husband, John, an energy investor, socialized with a close group of friends from college (the pair met as undergrads at Princeton) and other professionals and basked in the energy and vibrancy of the city. Then the pandemic hit, and the family — which by then included four kids — moved to Florida. “We wanted our kids to truly live an indoor/ outdoor life,” says Daphne. The move wasn’t without cons — both parents are frequently on the road — but the family takes it in stride.

“The pandemic highlighted how much we can’t control,” Daphne says. “But coming home to a place that feels like vacation is a major win.”

What pushed you to make this change? I was inspired by my boss, who was unlike any attorney I had ever known. I had worked in law firms in a support capacity for most of my life, but I didn’t really have the motivation to take the bar and practice law before then.

What did you learn?

I learned that the adage “It’s never too late” was true. By pushing myself to do more rather than less in what should have been my retirement years, I felt revitalized.

When Vicki Rimasse went to law school for the first time, at 25, she didn’t have “the bug.” Law school was just a fallback for her, after she got her undergraduate degree in psychology and didn’t know what to do next. She never took the bar exam, instead embarking on a career in legal writing and doing a stint as a receptionist. But a chance encounter in an elevator led to a new job and a promotion to paralegal — and a new hunger for the profession.

“I met a young woman in the elevator, and I was impressed with her outfit, because no one had been dressing up since the pandemic started,” Vicki recounts. “I complimented her and said, ‘Oh, by the way, do you need any paralegals at your firm?’ Long story short, by the end of the ride she wanted me to interview.”

In her new role, Vicki fell in love with the law. “My job feels like watching Dateline sometimes,” she says. “When I was reading deposition transcripts my boss had done, it felt like a chess game. He was so sharp; he would find little nuances. I said, ‘I really want to do this.’ ”

She plans to take the bar exam in January 2023.

Do you have any regrets? Though I try not to regret the past, I do sometimes wish I had been more motivated at a younger age. It took me a lifetime to find myself, and it’s still a process.

What was the most challenging part of making the change?

Fear of failure. What if I don’t pass the bar exam? What if I’m really not cut out to practice law? There are always what-ifs when it comes to change. However, much of life is a do-over.

What was the most rewarding part of making the change?

I’m happy to know that you can learn a lot working at law firms even in a support staff capacity. So in some ways I never really gave up the dream. —as told to Lizz Schumer

From the outside, Carina Urbach’s life looked pretty great. She had a husband of 24 years, two healthy kids, a job and a vibrant social life. But on the inside, she was miserable. She turned to drinking to mask that misery. “I had really lost my sense of purpose and what I was here to do,” she explains. “I had it all, but my soul was empty.” She stopped drinking the January before the pandemic hit, but once the shutdown happened that March, her daughter came home from college and every distraction dried up, it wasn’t long before she was stealing her daughter’s raspberry vodka. After her daughter confronted her, Carina decided to get treatment at Caron Treatment Centers, where she spent six weeks learning how to live without substances.

“Treatment feels like this weird combination of sleepaway camp and boot camp, with this movie playing all your worst memories,” Carina says. But she saw that time as a gift she was privileged enough to be able to access and to have health insurance to help her afford. “Having that time away from my family to just focus on myself, without responsibilities, allowed me to do a lot of work on myself in a short time,” she says. It taught her how to get in touch with what she really wanted in life and gave her practical strategies for living and a new direction in her career.

Now almost two years sober, Carina is embarking on the second year of a master’s program in social work, with the eventual goal of doing the kind of practical, action-based therapy that helped her. “I’m not absolutely sure I want to be in the substance abuse field, but I think I do,” she says, noting that she can use her own experience to help others.

What pushed you to make this change?

I first told my family I had a drinking problem on Christmas Eve 2019. By January 1, 2020, I had decided I was going to stop drinking. My daughter was very concerned about my going away to treatment, how she was going to survive without me. My husband said that to support me, he wasn’t going to drink either. I was dry until March 12, the day the shutdown happened in Pennsylvania. It got to where one morning, my daughter basically said, “What is wrong with you?” The next day, I was at Caron.

What did you learn? The biggest thing I learned is that I am not what people think of me. I’ve always been the peacekeeper, always trying to keep everybody happy. And I see that very much in all aspects of my life, really. And part of the result of that is never doing anything, even if it’s true for me, that might upset somebody else. In large part where I am in my sobriety right now is thinking about a lot of that kind of stuff. How do I want to spend my free time, and what do I like to do?

What was the most challenging part?

One thing that’s hard is that it has changed some of my relationships, because drinking was a big part of them. And that’s been sad; I’ve had to grieve and sort of let go of romanticized versions of things, from how I remember high school to what it was like to have a great dinner with my husband with a really nice bottle of wine. There is a loss associated with that for me.

Do you have any regrets? No regrets, no. Some surprises, but no regrets.

What is something that’s been rewarding?

As I’ve been in recovery longer, I’ve found more and more people who are in my circle, or whom I meet, who also are in recovery or who choose not to drink. And when you’re not looking for something, you often don’t find it, but when you start looking for something, it’s like you see it all over the place. So that’s been a really nice surprise.

— astoldtoLizzSchumer

Forinformationabout CaronTreatment Centers,gotocaron.org.

There’s little question that Simone Biles is a champion, but last summer, in the qualifying round of the Tokyo Summer Olympics, something felt off to her. Eventually, she pulled out of all but one event. Some criticized her for withdrawing, but over the course of two weeks, Simone helped redefine true grit. “The word ‘champion’ used to just mean being on top or breaking records,” she says. “Now it means being vulnerable and courageous.” Simone has gone on to share her inner strength with young girls. Her new line of activewear for girls with Athleta features Simone’s mantras, such as Because I can and Courage is your superpower, sewn into the fabric. Says Biles: “They can do anything they set their minds to.”

For more information about the Athleta Girl x Simone Biles collection, go to athleta.com.