Today we’d like to introduce you to Sheena Lee.
Sheena, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
Ah, story. I have always been fascinated by people’s stories because it gives context as to why a person is the way that they are and sheds light as to how & why they choose to share their gifts.
I am many things. I’m a yoga teacher. I’m a chiropractor. I’m a birth doula. I’m an entrepreneur. I’m a boss. I’m a coach. How I arrived at all these roles are all rooted in their stories, but the short of it is that all these various roles have saved me, helped me heal, and allowed me to facilitate deeper healing for others.
I’m obsessed helping others to activate their own potential because I learned how to activate my own and it changed my life.
As a teen, I was pretty severely bullied and suffered from anxiety, depression, daily headaches, and body pain. My mom took me to a chiropractor to help with the headaches and you wouldn’t believe it, but the headaches and body aches went away. I didn’t know it at the time, but that chiropractor changed my life.
Everything has come full circle because now I am a chiropractor that serves families — mostly little ones and pregnant moms, but I have a special place in my heart caring for kids and women struggling with anxiety because of my own story.
I have often thought to myself that our pain eventually turns into our power if we know how to shift our perspectives so that our stories can empower rather than disempower us.
There is power in pain. Our stories of betrayal teach us how to cultivate self-love. Our story of not being enough is how we learn to step into our enough-ness. Our stories of sickness teach us to appreciate health. Our story is how we heal and help others heal.
Witnessing this realization in others — watching that LIGHT turn back on in someone when they realize that they’ve always had the power to shift their health and ultimately their life — is my life’s purpose.
THAT is true power. THAT is true healing. Healing from the inside out.
By blending wellness and mindfulness, it helps to bridge the gap from where people are currently at to who they are meant to be — in their power, fully expressed, and vibrant.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
The journey has both been the smoothest and bumpiest experience of my entire life.
I chose to open my practice right out of school. Traditionally, most students will become an associate under the wing of another doctor to get experience before venturing off to open a practice of their own. Always a glutton for doing things the hard way, I opened four months after graduating. However, I understood the importance of having coaches & mentors so that I wouldn’t have to re-invent the wheel and under their coaching, I was able to start things off on the right foot.
My practice is also highly specialized (pediatrics and pregnancy specific) and out of network with insurance, which is for the most part the exact opposite of how most chiropractic offices operate. There were some challenges with this initially because in the beginning you are just so desperate to accept any client so you can start being profitable, but I made sure to stay very specific with my communication and marketing so that I now get to have fun serving some of the best people everyday!
We often hear how tough it is to get a business going with the city, red tape, finding a location, etc. but the process for me was very smooth. Two months before graduation, I found an ideal space to open my practice and it just so happened that the current tenants wouldn’t be ready to move out until I was ready.
Of course, I had some challenges with the typical growing pains of starting a business- finding clients, being profitable, and immersing myself into a community that I am not from. With a strong purpose, unwavering faith, a little patience, and something to prove, I “stumbled” my way into “success” rather easily.
My personal life is where I found myself struggling the most, where I was presented with challenge after challenge, which really tested my fortitude and how badly I wanted my vision to come to fruition. Two months before opening my practice, a decade long relationship came to an unexpected close. Then, at the end of the same year, a dear friend of mine passed away.
I was attempting to open a practice, heal a broken heart, and help others heal all at the same time. I only had the mental capacity to deal with one, so I dove straight into my work. It’s probably why I had success early on because it was the only thing that got my mind off the pain. It was definitely an unhealthy coping strategy, but it’s my truth.
2018 was one of the hardest years of my life, but from the outside in, it looked like I was kicking ass. To my credit, I absolutely was, but I also struggled like I never have before. I learned to channel the pain I experienced into power and learned so many valuable lessons that actually helped me to be a better leader, business owner, chiropractor, friend, and human. Looking back, I can’t imagine who I would be today without those learning opportunities disguised as pain and heartache.
Vibrant Health Family Chiropractic – what should we know? What do you do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
At Vibrant Health Family Chiropractic, I serve young families looking for a holistic and empowered approach to health. I take care of full families but specialize in working with pregnant moms and the pediatric population. In any given moment, you could walk into my practice and confuse it for a mommy & me daycare facility with the amount of kiddos running around, babies giggling (and crying, let’s be real!), and pregnant mamas chasing after said kiddos.
I help to facilitate the healing process for these families by ensuring that their nervous systems are operating optimally through chiropractic care. We live our lives through our nervous system, which is comprised of the brain, spinal cord, and nerves that go to every single organ, gland, cell, and tissue in the body. The spine acts as the bony armor protecting the delicate nervous system, so the alignment of the spine is crucial to ensure that the nervous system is operating well. By focusing on the nervous system, these families lives have changed because they are expressing health from the inside out.
As a company, what I am most proud of is the amount of internal referrals we get. It is a reflection of how much we love on the patients we take care of, how invested we are in their lives (not just their symptoms), the incredible results they get, and their trust in me, my team, and how the office operates.
What sets us apart other than have a very niche specialization, is how invested myself and my team are in cultivating deep relationships with the patients we serve– whether it’s holding space for women to give voice to their worries, for children to just be fully themselves, or truly caring about their lives outside of the office. They aren’t just a number. They are cared for as if they are our friends and family … because they are!
What is “success” or “successful” for you?
I honestly have no clue. I’m still figuring this out.
However, if you had just asked me a couple of months ago, I would have measured success based upon metrics, surpassing goals (because meeting them are an expectation), and receiving external validation or celebration.
As an entrepreneur and personal development junkie, it seems like the “hustle” mentality is glorified and I naively bought into that, valued what I thought I was supposed to be important (achievement and success). and set goals that we’re really mine. This led to a three months cycle of burn out, which I just recently recovered from.
In reflecting while on the other side of burn out, I realized that I needed to create some space for myself and redefine what success means. It’s funny because my goal last month was to not set any goals and just go with the flow & I had one of the best months in practice — I did well financially, but I felt AMAZING the whole time.
So, I don’t really know how to define success just yet but I do know that chasing the traditional definition of success robbed me of all the joy found within the process. I’ll let you know when I’ve figured it out 😉
Contact Info:
- Address: 1173 N. Dixie Dr. Suite 105
San Dimas, CA. 91773 - Website: www.getvibranthealth.com
- Phone: (909)675-2257
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dr.sheenalee/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sandimaschiropractor/
Image Credit:
Diana Lake Photography, Lotus Photography – Natalie Thies
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