Vitegrity Living
Vitegrity Living supports people to cultivate mindsets and habits that nurture their mental, physical, and spiritual well-being while promoting the health of our planet. Our approach illuminates clients’ core values and guides the implementation of lifestyle shifts & new practices to support vitality & the alignment with one’s inner truth.
This means we assist clients in creating time for gratitude and reflection while we guide them in becoming more mindful and self-aware. We help them integrate regular movement and stillness practices into their daily routines, we support them in modifying their diet and hydration habits, and we encourage them to find joy in becoming stewards of their own health.
The team at Vitegrity Living believes in the power of intention and the inspiration that comes with living well. We know when you feel vital & confident in your body, it is easier to be kind to yourself & others. When you are living in integrity with health you have the energy to discover & pursue your passion.
So whether you’re hoping to reduce stress and improve quality of life, train for your next adventure or stay active and independent as you age, we’ll provide the guidance to keep you on your path to a lifetime of well-being & inner peace.
Mission
To cultivate individual, community, and environmental wellbeing by empowering people to become stewards of their own health.
Vision
To become a flourishing, multi-generational community of people living in harmony with the Earth and in honor of their whole selves, both onsite at the Vitegrity Living and around the world.
Manifesto
You are more powerful than you know. And you know more than you give yourself credit for. You have everything you need to build the life you’ve always dreamt of, you just need to believe that what you’re dreaming can be built.
Easier said than done, we know. Modern life is a lot of good things, but it’s also a thousand distractions every minute. It’s automated, sugar coated, sedentary screen-fog. It’s everywhere except here. It’s anytime except now.
We want to help you turn down the static and tune up your inner voice. We want to help you clarify your vision for yourself, then actualize it.
Part of this process requires healing, and part requires growing. All of it emerges from the integration of practices that nourish your mental health, your physical health, and the health of our planet.
We provide the guidance and support you need to weave mindfulness, movement, rest, rehabilitation, and sustainability into the fabric of your lifestyle. We offer the structure you need to liberate yourself from pain, fear, waste, and overwhelm. And you?
You become a steward of your life. You become a steward of the planet. You summon up that power you’ve always had to become the person you always knew you could be: Joyous, uninhibited, living with vitality, thriving with integrity.
Mindfulness:
Health begins with truth, with feeling what you genuinely feel and engaging honestly with your environment. That’s why we encourage everyone to make a practice of presence and to be mindful of the present’s impacts-- not just on their own futures, but on that of the Earth’s too. Only with a pulse on truth can anyone learn to do what’s right for their mind, body, community, and planet.
Reflection:
Ancient Greek philosopher, Heraclitus had it right when he wrote, “Eyes and ears are bad witnesses to uncomprehending minds.” Fully immersing ourselves in the truth of who and where and when we are is only the first step. We must also make time to reflect on our experiences so we can make sense and meaning of them.
Gratitude:
And when we make sense and meaning of experiences, it’s important that we cherish them. Gratitude, the acknowledgement and deep appreciation for people, places, things, events, and existence itself, is a critical extension of reflection. It cultivates flourishing relationships between individuals and their environment; it engenders stability and a sense of connection, the prerequisites for health.
Movement:
We’re made to move. All the systems of our bodies, all the facets of our minds are designed to be part of a highly sophisticated, animate, articulate, mobile being. To move is to honor yourself for who you’re built to be and experience presence to the fullest. By integrating movement into your life as a fundamental constant, you’re allowing your body and mind to function in alignment with their design.
Stillness:
But like everything in life, movement must be integrated along with its complement: stillness. Stillness provides bodies with time to recover and replenish energy stores; it provides minds with time to process sensory input, emotional output, and all manner of thought. It is the critical counterbalance to the active engagement of motion, the restorative quietude that empowers us to make meaning of experience.
Joy
Caring for our health and the health of the world around us is a fundamentally joyful experience. It should not only inspire industrious devotion, but also lighthearted, playful, joy. We encourage everyone to make time and space for celebration. All things are temporary and no amount of gravity will make them stick around forever. So savor and “Don’t wait to celebrate.”
About
It all started when…
Like many epiphanies, the one that launched Vitegrity Living emerged from a head-scratcher. And the head-scratcher emerged during a walk through the woods. It was a beautiful, sunny day, and despite all of my efforts to notice the colors of the leaves or savor the loamy smell of those that had fallen or revel in the invigorating coolness of mid-autumn, I couldn’t.
I kept getting distracted by a muffled, stomach-churning resistance to what I’d have to do after hiking: coach. Coach the group fitness classes that I wrote the programming for at a facility that I co-owned and with a business I helped found. “Why,” I asked myself over and over, “am I dreading going back to work that I created for myself?” The question was especially baffling because that work, according to every metric I could stack it up against, should have been nothing but fulfilling.
For one thing, it allowed me to engage with my lifelong passion of helping others lead healthy, active lives. For another, it provided me the opportunity to apply not only the knowledge I’d learned at chiropractic college, but also the exercise programming and coaching skills I’d gained as a competitive CrossFit athlete. So what was the problem?
After mulling this over for a bit, I had a profound realization: The problem wasn’t a “what.” The problem was a “where.” The sister businesses I co-owned, the Stay Active Clinic and CrossFit Asheville, shared a facility in the heart of West Asheville. Which meant that all of the coaching and rehabilitation was done indoors, on the concrete, surrounded by buildings and an endless slipstream of vehicles.
I wanted to stay outside.
“And wouldn’t my clients benefit from being outside, too?” I asked myself. The answer was yes. Undoubtedly, yes. I wondered what my businesses would be like if they were situated in nature. Where the running could happen on trails, not sidewalks teeming with shoppers. Where the yoga and stretching mats could lay atop soil or grass, not cement and rubber stall-mats, where the bodywork could be accompanied by the sounds cicadas make, not tire-on-asphalt.
And then I thought bigger. What if I created a facility that was more than a place to move and attend manual therapy appointments? What if it were a place that encouraged people of all ages to flourish in communion with their environment-- a place designed to support lifestyles that nurture all dimensions of health, including that of the planet?
I thought about how mental, physical, and spiritual wellness are inextricable from one another, and about how all three depend on the wellbeing of the Earth. I thought about how that means helping people get in touch with the natural world is just as important as helping them get in touch with themselves. And then the epiphany washed over me like an ocean wave you don’t see coming because you were busy looking at the beach: “This is what I’m here to do.”
I’m here to interrupt the static of socioeconomic systems that keep people sedentary, stressed-out, dehydrated, consuming nutrient-poor food, and unable to connect with who they really are. I’m here to intervene at any stage of life to help people create their own systems that clarify their truths, honor their physical and emotional needs, and connect them with their environment. I’m here to help people untangle and understand the great big knotted mess that is chronic lifestyle disease.
Sure, epiphanies happen suddenly and in seconds, but actualizing the insights they proffer takes time. Lots of it. I spent the next few years gaining and refining the skillset I would need to open the holistic health business I envisioned. I moved to Arizona, and there continued developing as a coach, advancing my career as a professional athlete, and spent almost a year working in a Corporate America setting - anywhere between 8 and 10 hours per day indoors, at a cubicle and under fluorescent lights where I experienced my vitality begin to wither. In coming years a string of serendipitous events lead me to explore an array of healing practices that combine ancient wisdom with modern scientific knowledge. I studied and experienced the benefits of sound healing, the power of mindfulness, and the necessity of joy.
After working with clients across age groups and in a variety of settings-- one-on-one, group classes, remote coaching, etc.-- I felt ready to launch my career as a creative wellness guide. When I began drawing up plans and outlining my services, my business’s name materialized organically: Vitegrity Living. After all, the very essence of what I do combines two sides of what I view as the same coin: I help people live with vitality and thrive with integrity.
Please join us and schedule a connection call today!
Blessings, Shanna
Live with vitality, thrive with integrity.
