Here in the Northeastern US, Fall is a time of harvest and abundance. A season when we are naturally led to celebrate the generosity of Mother Earth and a time to collectively take a few deep breaths and give thanks for all that has enriched our lives in the past year.
Gratitude lists are powerful health-promoting tools many of us practice daily. In addition, however, I like to do a seasonal “Appreciation Accounting” and would like to share my 2022 Appreciation Accounting with you.
This accounting is not about the deep appreciation I hold for my friends, family, pets, and all the living world around me. It is about my appreciation for you, the many thousands in our Better Bones community who over the decades have uplifted and encouraged me to continue rethinking optimum bone health.
In this modern world there is so much fiction to sort from fact, and so much encouragement and hope that has to be given. Each of you has helped me move ahead with my life’s mission of empowering women to take charge of their bone and total body health. My decades-long quest to learn more and share more is motivated by each of you, your stories, your successes, and your challenges. I appreciate each of you.
And then there is my staff of brilliant, creative, and generous individuals who make it their mission to help support my life’s work. All that I have been able to accomplish at the Center for Better Bones is due to the dedication and creativity of my Internal Power Squad.
I consider myself one of the luckiest people on the planet because I get to fulfill my life’s mission motivated by you all, and assisted by a strong, smart, creative team. This Thanksgiving I fully appreciate all that we—all of us together—have done to fulfill this mission of empowering women. For all of us at the Center for Better Bones, 2022 is going to go down in the books as a year in which we were able to help more and more women worldwide move from fear to empowerment—a year to appreciate indeed.
So, here’s my Appreciation Accounting for 2022:
- My team and I were once again able to deliver two 4-day in-person Better Bones Solution Retreats. One was at the Art of Living Retreat Center in Boone, NC, and the other was just held at the Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health in Massachusetts. It has been almost 3 years since we were last able to meet in person, so these were super gratifying experiences.
- We were able this year to engage with more than 300 individuals in our virtual 4-day Better Bones Solution Retreats. Going online with our retreats sprung out of necessity during the pandemic, but this format turned out to be a blessing as we can help many more people all around the world with our virtual retreats.
- We built an expansive community (www.tribe.drsusanbrownphd.com). This tribe is a growing, sharing, and learning community. It hosts 8 of my online courses, 4 of which are free. It also serves as a place where individuals can connect with one another to share successes and help each other on their bone health journey.
- We are creating The Better Bones Builders’ Local Chapters. This is a wonderful new avenue for personal connection among our community members. We are now able to empower leaders within our Better Bones community to host local meetups where individual Better Bones tribe members can talk in person and work towards their bone health goals.
- I released my newest book, Natural Bone Health: A Practitioner’s Guide. This book is especially important because it responds to my clients and followers who for many years have asked for information that they could share with their doctors on how to build bone strength naturally.
- I joined TikTok and it exploded! We gained 82K new friends on TikTok and learned a new way to share “tidbits” of health information that are fun and innovative.
- We also found a way to offer accurate at-home tests for Vitamin D and Omega-3 levels.
- In addition, we found a way for Better Bones Community members to access, on a self-pay basis, the lab tests we recommend in our medical workup for osteoporosis. This greatly reduces the barriers to understanding your own health information. https://www.betterbones.com/osteoporosis/whats-the-cause-of-your-osteoporosis/.
I look forward to all the blessings 2023 brings and to continuing to serve our community striving for greater bone and body health!