6 Practical Health Choices to Keep You Strong During COVID-19

Michelle Madrid-Branch / March 26, 2020March 31, 2020 / Adoptee, autoimmunity, Blog, Inspiration, Life Coach, Michelle Madrid-Branch

I learn so much from the meaningful conversations I have with my guests on The Greater Than Podcast. I know—perhaps now more than ever—that we need each other. COVID-19 has slowed the world down. The coronavirus pandemic is real. It has, understandably, made a lot of people feel uncertain and afraid.

The response to the virus has also brought people together. Families, who haven’t connected in weeks and months, are sitting around a table and breaking bread. They’re playing board games and becoming familiar with each other, again.

Strangers are emerging on their balconies and creating symphonies of music with neighbors they’ve never met. Balcony-to-balcony they’re finding new ways to connect because humans crave connection. We need it!

Your Big, Beautiful Story: A 3-Step Technique To Help You Live It

Michelle Madrid-Branch / February 28, 2020March 5, 2020 / Adoptee, Adoption Advocacy, Blog, Foster Care Advocacy, Foster Youth Advocacy, Inspiration, Life Coach, Michelle Madrid-Branch, Orphan Advocacy

“If I don’t give this work my all, I’m stealing from those who need my message the most.” It was a seismic shift in my mindset! Moving from being apprehensive to share my story to being 100% determined to share my story, and doing everything possible to make that happen.

It feels like, in the world today, we are prone to devalue our stories—our big, beautiful, important stories. In other words, I think we too easily lean toward silencing our voices. We tell ourselves that we don’t have anything important to say. What could someone like me possibly have to offer?

Life: Why It’s Worth the Journey

Michelle Madrid-Branch / January 31, 2020February 4, 2020 / Adoptee, Adoption Advocacy, autoimmunity, Blog, Breast Implants, Explant, Foster Care Advocacy, Foster Youth Advocacy, Inspiration, Life Coach, loving well, Michelle Madrid-Branch, Motherhood, Orphan Advocacy, breast implant illness

“There are a million reasons why people feel broken.” This comment, shared in an email, caused me to sit back in my chair and reflect for several minutes.

“Are there really a million reasons why people can find themselves shattered and on the floor?” I asked. “That seems overwhelming….”

My friend replied, “There are people who grew up in stable, but unloving homes. People abandoned in marriage. People who never found love. People rejected for all sorts of reasons that have left them feeling worthless.”

Beneath My Breasts: My Thoughts, Three Days Post-Explant

Michelle Madrid-Branch / January 16, 2020 / Adoptee, autoimmunity, Blog, Breast Implants, Explant, Inspiration, Life Coach, Michelle Madrid-Branch

“Michelle, you’re back.” I heard the gentle words of my post-op nurse, Michele, waking me up after my 4-hour procedure, in Cleveland, Ohio. I recall that, in our early morning pre-surgery preparations, she and I had teased each other about the best spelling of our given names. Is a one-L or two-L spelling the best? We laughed and agreed to disagree.

I remember walking into the operating room and being assisted by another amazing nurse, Karla, as she directed me onto the table, positioning my arms in an extended position—outward from my body. The anesthesiologist began placing an IV in my left arm and instructed me to think of a beautiful and peaceful place where I would want to spend the next several hours, while under anesthesia. I told her, immediately, that my peaceful destination would be Butterfly Beach, in Montecito, California. Four hours later, in what seemed like four minutes, I was being nursed back to consciousness and away from my favorite beach, by nurse Michele.

The Transformational Power of Service

Michelle Madrid-Branch / December 19, 2019January 3, 2020 / Adoptee, Adoption Advocacy, Blog, Foster Care Advocacy, Foster Youth Advocacy, Life Coach, Michelle Madrid-Branch, Orphan Advocacy

I host a podcast called Greater Than. I started this project to explore how people rise above tremendous challenges and find a greater way of being—discovering a purpose and a calling beyond their wildest dreams.

I’ve learned so much from listening to the stories of others who have gone through the toughest of times and, on the other side of pain, have uncovered the true meaning of life: serving.

When we look around us, as we approach the closing out of 2019, it seems that society has lost its way in the area of service. Greatness is viewed as having more than the next person: more accolades, more money, more strength, more power, more status. Greatness has never been about these things.

Adoptees, You are so Much More than Adoption

Michelle Madrid-Branch / December 5, 2019 / Adoptee, Adoption Advocacy, Blog, Foster Care Advocacy, Foster Youth Advocacy, Life Coach, Michelle Madrid-Branch

If you have breath, you have purpose. I love this quote! I don’t know who originally coined it, but I’m glad that they did because it’s true. If you are breathing, you are living, and that means you have a calling. A unique and individual purpose to carry out in this life.

We’re in the last month of 2019 and I want to remind you that you’re here for a reason. Finding that reason is what the journey of living is all about. Our ability to stay hungry on the hunt for our purpose is the challenge. So many things in life can dull our palates.

5 Things to Remember in Helping Your Adopted Child Through Self-Soothing

Michelle Madrid-Branch / November 6, 2019 / Adoptee, Adoption Advocacy, Blog, Foster Care Advocacy, Foster Youth Advocacy, Life Coach, Michelle Madrid-Branch, Orphan Advocacy

I was a self-soother. As a young international adoptee, I would rock myself back and forth on the family room floor trying to re-connect with the rhythms of my birth mother.

It was instinctual. Like a lost animal in the wild, searching for its mother, the rocking was a primal ritual performed by a child looking for her home.

I don’t remember having an awareness of why I would lay there, rocking myself. I just remember that the behavior seemed to calm and comfort me. It made me feel connected to something real inside of me. Something I could not openly express.

Looking back, the rocking gave me a sense of control. When I rocked, I could feel my mum. It was the only time when I could feel her close. Rocking myself offered me certainty.

Living in the Skin of Adoption

Michelle Madrid-Branch / October 29, 2019October 29, 2019 / Adoptee, Adoption Advocacy, Blog, Foster Care Advocacy, Foster Youth Advocacy, Life Coach, Michelle Madrid-Branch, Orphan Advocacy

I have my moments. Those times when I wish adoption was not part of my vocabulary. If you’re an adoptee, do you know what I mean?

There are times when I wish that I didn’t speak the language of adoption so fluently. I suppose, like every person of adoption alive today, I have my dark hours of doubt.

I’ve never pretended that I wasn’t adopted. What I have done is lessened this part of my story—skimming over my adoptee chapters. Many times, in the past, I’ve looked the other way…but, the skin still follows. I live in the skin of adoption and I know the challenges of feeling uncomfortable in that skin.

Adoptee-to-Adoptee: Stop. Recharge. Begin Again.

Michelle Madrid-Branch / October 10, 2019 / Adoptee, Adoption Advocacy, Blog, Foster Care Advocacy, Foster Youth Advocacy, Life Coach, Michelle Madrid-Branch, Orphan Advocacy

Can I tell you something? When I first started writing this blogpost, it had a completely different energy. Initially, my thoughts were focused on writing the heavier side of adoption. My words were weighted. My heart felt burdened.

Maybe that’s because I’m feeling A LOT right now: preps for an upcoming surgery, planning for my recovery, and all the “mom feels” you can have when you’ll be away from your kids.

I could hear my self-talk whispering that I was “drained,” “depleted,” and “overdone.” Moving through the many layered emotions of this season has been demanding on my mindset and on my heart. Earlier today, in the middle of spiraling into limiting language, I heard an even louder voice that said—STOP!

When Adoptees Push, Please Pull

Michelle Madrid-Branch / September 12, 2019January 10, 2020 / Adoptee, Adoption Advocacy, Blog, Foster Care Advocacy, Foster Youth Advocacy, Life Coach, Mentoring, Michelle Madrid-Branch, Motherhood, Orphan Advocacy

Why do I write so transparently about the adoptee experience?

Because I know that there are other adoptees in the world, right now, who feel isolated and are frustrated by this sense of isolation. That’s not to say that these same adoptees are not loved and cherished by their adoptive families, it’s just that adoption—for the adoptee—can feel lonely.

Who do you talk to? Where do you turn? How do you grab hold of emotions and questions that you’ve stuffed way down inside of you and bring them up to the light? Will you still be loved, included, if you do?

Fear of rejection is real for the adoptee. Often, our initial reaction to this fear is to push with all of our might away from the rawest parts of ourselves. Pushing is a protective mechanism for the person of adoption.

Stay in the loop