Shaken Awake: The Morning That Reminded Me Why I’m Here
- Carrie Woodcock
- Dec 3
- 6 min read
A story about burnout, purpose, and the power of one unexpected conversation.
“Two hours ago I was sitting alone staring into my coffee. Now I’m leaving with hope I haven’t felt in a long time. The universe brought me right here.”
Sometimes the universe sends someone to shake you awake. And sometimes…you are the one sent to shake someone else.
I don’t know if that man was sent to shake something loose in me, or if I was meant to shake something loose in him. Maybe it was a bit of both—two lives brushing up against each other at just the right moment.
I walked into work on a Tuesday morning feeling completely drained.
Not tired—depleted.
Not unmotivated—disconnected.
Not overwhelmed—buried.
I muttered to myself, “I guess I have to go teach this class I have zero motivation to teach.” That alone told me everything I needed to know about where I was mentally and emotionally.
For weeks I’d been stretched thin in every direction: running programs, supporting staff, renovating our website, preparing community events, teaching classes, bringing in donations, keeping up with billing, writing blogs, and trying to hold together an entire mission with sheer willpower. Add in the emotional labor of working around unpredictable moods and the constant pressure to “produce,” and the result was a version of myself that felt like a faded photocopy of the real thing.
By the time I got home each night, I was spent. Too exhausted to work on my dreams. Too foggy to write. Too deflated to exercise. Too overwhelmed to focus on Foundations, Total Transformation, or anything that truly lights me up.
Add recovery from knee surgery and a weekend routine that left me more depleted than restored, and it’s no surprise my life felt like a treadmill I couldn’t get off.
It was a vicious cycle. A loop. A life on autopilot.
And on that Tuesday morning, I didn’t want to teach.
I didn’t want to talk.
I didn’t want to lead anything.
But I went anyway.
The Class I Didn’t Want to Teach
There were only two of us in the room at first, so we decided to focus on what I know best as a health coach: motivation and how stress shapes our bodies, our minds, our routines, and our choices.
We talked about the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems, cortisol, chronic stress, mindfulness, breathwork, sleep, movement, nutrition—all the foundational pieces I teach constantly, yet somehow had stopped applying to myself.
Then someone new walked in.
Someone dealing with his own struggles. Someone who had shown up for meditation the day before and shared insights that made me pause. Someone who, without knowing it, was about to shift the entire direction of the morning.
I read a few more paragraphs from the stress workbook…And then the discussion took on a life of its own.
It grew.
It deepened.
It expanded.
This is the magic of group work—the moments when something organic begins to unfold, when the lesson becomes a conversation, and the conversation becomes something meaningful.
And on that day, something meaningful was exactly what I needed.
A Conversation That Turned Into an Awakening
We talked about purpose and passion.
About visualization and creativity.
About living in a world obsessed with convenience and consumption, and how easily we lose the deeper parts of ourselves in the process.
We talked about how no one asks children who they are—they only ask what they want to do to make money someday.
We talked about nutrition, processed food, medication, and the systems that keep us stuck.
We talked about journaling, manifestation, higher power, and the strange ways the universe sends us messages at the moment we most need them.
And somewhere in that conversation, I said out loud something I hadn’t admitted in years:
“Sometimes I get angry because I don’t know why things aren’t working out. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong. I feel like I’m doing everything I’m supposed to do… and I’m still stuck.”
I even talked about why I stepped away from music—my first passion. How vulnerable it felt to pour my heart into something deeply meaningful only to hear, “Play something I can dance to!” How soul-crushing it was to be unheard. Unseen.
And then this man—this stranger who walked into my classroom—looked at me and said:
“Two hours ago I was sitting alone staring into my coffee. Now I’m leaving with hope I haven’t felt in a long time. The universe brought me right here.”
And all I could think was:
Me too.
The Epiphany
Something cracked open that morning.
A reminder.
A message.
A moment of being shaken awake.
And here’s what I realized:
My life is cluttered.
Emotionally, physically, energetically.
I am spread too thin to do anything well.
And the things I most want to grow—my business, my writing, my health—are the things getting the least of me.
Some of my choices are misaligned with the life I want.
Especially in my routines, and how I spend my energy.
I am not stuck.
I am simply standing at a crossroads.
And I have a choice.
A real one.
Not a dramatic life overhaul.
Not a runaway-and-start-over fantasy.
Just a quiet, powerful truth:
My life becomes the result of the choices I make every single day.And those choices are mine—not anyone else’s.
What That Morning Taught Me
That morning reminded me why I do what I do.
Why Total Transformation exists.
Why I created FOUNDATIONS.
Why I keep showing up even on the days I want to hide.
Because sometimes all it takes is one conversation.
One connection.
One moment of being truly seen.
Sometimes the universe sends someone to shake you awake.
And sometimes…you are the one sent to shake someone else.
On that Tuesday morning, I was both.
I may never see that man again—I didn’t even get his last name—but that moment will stay with me forever. It was raw, unexpected, human, and exactly what I needed. A reminder that even in the chaos, the exhaustion, the clutter, and the noise, the universe still knows how to tap us on the shoulder and say, Wake up. You still have a choice.
And maybe that’s why that moment with a stranger hit me so hard—because it reminded me how much we all need a reset sometimes. Not a dramatic overhaul, not a life reinvention… just a return to what steadies us. Those shaky, honest moments are exactly what led me to create the Foundations Four Focus Group.
Four Weeks. Four Pillars. One Intentional Reset.
If you’re craving a fresh start—a chance to reboot your habits, reconnect with yourself, and rebuild your foundation for whole-person wellness—the Foundations Four is a path back to alignment. It’s not a crash program, a quick fix, or a one-size-fits-all solution. It’s a 4-week guided reset built around the four pillars that hold us upright even on the days when we feel wobbly:
1. Physical Wellness
Your energy, movement, sleep, nourishment, and the daily rhythms that keep your body supported and steady.
2. Emotional Wellness
Your resilience, your stress patterns, the way you speak to yourself, and your ability to stay grounded through the inevitable chaos.
3. Spiritual Wellness
Your meaning, purpose, and the quiet inner practices that reconnect you with what matters most.
4. Social Wellness
Your relationships, boundaries, communication, and the people who make you feel seen, safe, and supported.
Why four weeks? Because commitment doesn’t have to be forever—not at first. It just has to be real. For 28 days, you’ll track your habits, reflect on your needs, and experiment with what happens when you intentionally show up for yourself across every pillar of your life.
If you’re reading this and feeling even a flicker of “I need something like this,” I want to invite you to join me for the very first Foundations Four Focus Group beginning January 4, 2026.
It’s a six-week guided experience designed to help you reset your habits, explore the four pillars of whole-person wellness, and honestly assess what’s working—and what isn’t. We’ll meet for six weekly hour-long group sessions (recorded if you can’t attend), walk through each pillar together, track progress using the Foundations Four workbook, and dig into goal-setting, behavior patterns, and the real-life challenges that come with change. You’ll also receive a one-on-one coaching session to use whenever it feels most supportive during the process. The cost is just $50, and if this season of your life feels like a nudge toward alignment, I’d love to have you in the group.
Our final week ends with one powerful question: Is this worth continuing? Most of us already know the answer. Foundations Four simply helps make it visible.
In the mess and the magic,
Carrie
Carrie Woodcock
Founder, Total Transformation
NBC-HWC Health Coach
ACE Personal Trainer, & Behavior Change Specialist
PN Level 1 Nutrition Coach
Mental Well-Being Certified Fitness Professional
Not an expert with everything figured out—just a woman who gets lost, gets frustrated, doubts herself, and still believes deeply in growth, hope, and people.
I’m walking this path the same way you are: one honest step at a time.
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