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About Me
I’m a giver. Despite being an extremely shy and highly sensitive introvert, I’ve always dedicated myself to others, in my work or in my private life… to the point of forgetting about myself and always putting myself last… to the point of burning candles at both ends… I had to learn to care about myself to better serve others. Multiple Sclerosis in a way has been my awakening. I am still learning. Navigating a condition and the self is a process. But today, I am more than ready to give again. I know how to keep my cup full so that I always have plenty to share.
My story
My name is Magali. I was born and grew up in the sunny south of France, in a little city close to Marseilles; In the middle of the majestic sceneries: the wildlife of Camargue (salty swamp, wild white horses and black bulls), the Alpilles (small Alps of France, garrigues: aromatic herbs and pine forest) and the dramatic coast to the Mediterranean Sea (the Blue Coast); but also surrounded by the smoky cities and highways, massive traffic, and petrochemical industries. The place I grew up in taught me that nothing is all black or all white in life, all right or all wrong… From a young age, I was already contemplating the question of balance…
I grew up in a loving family, with Mum, Dad and my two older brothers. I am the youngest one and the little girl… but also the dreamer, the free spirit and the wildest one. We have Spanish origins from my Mum side. A big family with a story of immigration during the Spanish civil war, just before WW2. The French/Spanish mix (and the family history) is my cultural background (Family, Community, Equity, Acceptance, Sharing, Love, and FOOD) and certainly, as for many of us, a part of my hidden (not so hidden) traumas.
Between the need for connection and the need to be on my own
I grew up not really knowing where I fitted or where I was allowed to fit, tied between the importance of family and my need for independence, aloneness, and travel. Tied between what was expected from me and what I was really longing for. I developed social anxiety from quite a young age, though I understood what it really was only recently. Being often sick did not really help too to be at ease with others (hay fever, asthma, and other things never really identified…). Don’t take me wrong, I had a happy and loving childhood, many friends, and some true friends. And I still have all that.
My need to care for others is what always pushed me forward, in my personal relationships and in my professional relationships. I wanted to be a writer and a translator… my certain longing for peace, quiet, and alone time, while sharing and giving. My road took me many different ways and careers: tour guide and tourist information service, event organizer, artists manager… This career in Artist management was an epic part of my life, meeting with some beautiful souls (artists, colleagues, friends…) and was also a time of growth in my personal life… followed by an epic burn out, destroying all I had (career, friendships, a 7-year love relationship, family…), listening to signs telling me to go, buying a no return flight ticket… I was 30-years-old at that time.
The start of a lifelong journey
I spent a year in Australia (the other side of the world for someone from Europe) and my dream destination since I was a child (and started to learn English). I was on a journey to find myself again, this dear friend of mine that I lost somewhere around 14 years old (long depression/anxiety attributed to me being a teenager… now, I believe it was EBV, but I’ve never been officially diagnosed). During this time in Australia, I went from place to place, trying to isolate myself even more from the world. I even spent 4 months in a really remote place in the North of South Australia, only 17 people living there at that time, and all of them still have such an important place in my heart. I was awakening but not quite there yet.
New Zealand: love, discovery, & understanding
Then I took the chance to not be too old yet to get a second working holiday visa and jump to New Zealand before turning 31-years-old. And here I am since 2015… first ready to keep travelling, keep isolating myself. I ended up in Fiordland and fell in love with the place… I was working in a motel where I was offered to stay for longer than the 1 year of my visa… I decided to stay. A year later, I met my now-husband. We got married in 2018. With the clock ticking and my sudden wish to be a mum, we started to try for a baby shortly after the wedding. And then the second spiral of life…
Not only did I lose myself again professionally, working in hospitality and customer service since arriving in New Zealand as, despite my qualifications in Business Management, I couldn’t get anything else workwise, but from dramas to dramas (betrayals, jobs losses, sicknesses, and even a pandemic…) creating a lot of stress in my life (no? seriously?!?), my struggle to conceive revealed something else.
Multiple Sclerosis
If it can't get worse, it can only get better
I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis in 2019. Without saying that all the travels to different hospitals, and specialists to understand my fertility issues and get an official diagnosis of MS, made me lose all my money… This is where I reached the bottom. It couldn’t get worse.
During all that time, something was also getting stronger and stronger: the team between my husband and me. My thought was “if it cannot get worse, it can only get better”.
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Research & regrowth
Shortly after receiving my diagnosis and being told “Sorry, there’s no cure. Take this, it might help, but there’s nothing else you can do…”, I have dived into reading, searching, studying. I learned all that I could to understand the condition to the cellular, hormonal, chemical level. For any simple cold, I always turned to food to heal me. My spontaneous reaction was to look in that direction for MS. And sure enough, there was a lot. I was eating well but not according to myself… My passion for nutrition and lifestyle medicine grew bigger. But I also turned to something else that was crucial for my healing. I turned inwards. Finally, after years searching for MY SELF, I started to listen. My healing journey did not start exactly with food, even though it is what I am talking about most of the time, and yes, I’m a food lover and passionate cook (after all, we are eating between 2 to 3 times a day!!).
The healing
My journey started with mindset, self-care, mindfulness, and spirituality.
It started with introspection and with healing the most important relationship in my life, the one with myself.
Because it is the one that will always stick with me from the beginning up to the very end.
Because I am taking care of this important person, my need to share and give to others got even stronger.
