Finding Your Inner Warrior

One day you’re on top of the world, fit, lean and in the best shape of your life, then the next day you feel miserable, and it’s like everything around you is falling so fast just ask Karen Dubs, holistic health coach, and yoga instructor.

Dubs is the author of “Find Your Flexible Warrior: Think, Stretch, and Eat for Balance and Resilience a book that incorporates strategies to eat healthier, think better and find your overall balance & resilience.

“If you don’t take care of yourself you have nothing to give anyone else self-care must come first if you want to make a difference in the world,” said Dubs.

It all started one day when Karen got sick and didn’t have the energy to do simple things like washing her hair. Dubs decided to see a doctor; she was diagnosed with Lyme disease and autoimmune thyroid disease.

For a long time, she didn’t accept her diagnosis, but she tried to push through surviving on coffee and lots of sugar. She says that she felt sorry for herself and didn’t know how to cope with her illness; she felt pressure to be fit, energetic, and healthy but just couldn’t muster the energy.

Why does Lynsey Addario choose to be a conflict photographer

 

Photo courtesy of Lynsey Addario

Imagine waking up to gunfire all around. Imagine living through the chaos of war. Imagine witnessing bullets flying over your head as you duck and Dodge trying to get to cover. Imagine watching friends or colleagues lose their lives right before your eyes and you know it isn’t much you can do to help them. Imagine while all this is occurring all you have in your possession is a camera to document this chaos as it plays out.

 

Most people would say you were crazy if you wanted to endure such chaos only equipped with just a camera, but to Lynsey Addario “It’s what I do.” Addario is a photojournalist, who has been embedded in Afghanistan, right under the nose of the Taliban.

In 2011, she was kidnapped in Libya while covering the uprising and fighting between Moammar Gadhafi’s troops and rebel forces. Addario was also captured in Fallujah, Iraq in 2004. One might ask why? Why are you covering conflicts that can result in you possibly losing your life? Well, that seems like an easy question to answer for Addario.

She didn’t just start covering conflicts just to be a war photographer. She says there were issues that she felt were important and while covering these issues at some point, she would get pulled into actual combat because it was a part of the story.

Lynsey Addario was more than willing to subject herself to danger because to her it was vital that she was there to bear witness to history and what was happening around her, Addario was concerned with the position of her country, the United States of America was taking on the specific issues at hand. She says she wanted policymakers to see the fruits of their decisions, and I think at some point she wanted to see if maybe she could influence foreign policy. In her book she just wants people to understand that she isn’t driven by adrenaline there are so many reasons why she does the work she does it say calling Addario says, “It’s much greater than an addiction to adrenaline.”