I stumbled upon Caroline Jordan's YouTube channel a couple of years ago.
With a fractured foot at the time, I was desperately searching for some inspiration on non-weight bearing exercises. As my fracture went undiagnosed for months, it was quite difficult staying positive as I was on the waiting list for an MRI. I felt like I was losing my mind not being able to move my body as I was used to. Fitness has always been very important part in my life, and my patience with my healing progress was exhausting. And then I made a new friend. Her name was Caroline Jordan.
Caroline had a whole playlist on her channel dedicated to “Hurt Foot Workouts”. She was living through a foot injury herself and hadn’t been able to perform any high impact exercises in months. She understood what I was going through. She was familiar with my new aches and pains that came from moving around in a boot and on crutches for a long period of time. She had tips and stretches, even modified yoga poses that I could actually do without putting much strain on my foot.
She developed creative workout routines. Many of them were Pilates and Barre inspired, allowing me to break a sweat and feel like me again. But most importantly, she constantly reminded me to be kind to myself and to be patient and learn to trust in the healing process. She made me realize how a positive mindset was vital in allowing me to overcome any challenge and she helped shift my focus from what my injury prevented me from doing to all the things I was capable of. I started to appreciate the amazing strength of my body and to remember that no matter what life threw at me, there was always something to be grateful for. I rediscovered my PMA.
Caroline’s Footprint
Caroline has continued to add Hurt Foot workouts to her YouTube channel and has put together a "Hurt Foot Fitness Program" available for sale here. The document is pretty much a Hurt Foot Bible, a powerful tool that gently guides you to find your own healing path. She also has a "Hurt Foot group" on her Facebook page, creating an empowering and supportive community online to help individuals feel their best and stay positive throughout frustrating injuries. Her coaching philosophy is to provide people with the tools to live a happy, healthy, balanced life. She does this by consistently adding new content to her YouTube channel, Caroline Jordan Fitness, working as a fitness expert, corporate wellness consultant, and health coach in San Francisco. She hosts large public fitness classes, events, workshops, retreats, and is a partner and brand ambassador for various leading companies. Caroline is the author of "Balanced Body Breakthrough". In the book, she shares her personal journey from burnout to beating stress and finding balance. Her words convey the same feeling of sincerity and understanding as her videos do. She speaks from the heart, allowing us into her private world and guiding us to find healing through the methods that worked for her. It's what sets her apart from so many other health and fitness personalities... she isn't simply offering advice and programs from what she's learned and studied. She's offering wisdom from what she's lived. I instantly felt a connection and a sense of trust for this reason.
One on One with Caroline
I recently had the opportunity to chat with Caroline, one on one. Although it instantly felt like I was catching up with an old friend, I still started with a few ice-breaking questions. I learned that she is an avid reader, some of her favorites including “Eat, Pray, Love”, “The Alchemist”, “Einstein’s Dreams”, and “The Power of Now”. She would choose a smoothie over a juice, and “Friends” over “Seinfeld”. If she wasn’t working as a wellness coach, she would either be a writer for a magazine, or a television show host. She answered each question enthusiastically and with the same upbeat attitude I adored online.
Her path seemed to be directed towards fitness from a very young age. Raised by her mom, a full-time nurse who taught fitness classes for fun, and her dad, a pediatrician, the only world she knew involved health and wellness. She accompanied her mom to the gym often and enjoyed spending time in that environment. She received her first group certification at 15 and was already team teaching with her mom at that time.
After moving to San Francisco and working as a fitness instructor full time for a couple of years, she found herself completely burnt out, which she delves into in her book. Knowing that she needed to make a change, but also remaining loyal to fitness, she started exploring her options. She decided to return to school to study positive psychology and earned her Health and Wellness Certification. The transition in her career seemed to take a natural course.
Figuring it out
It was once she became a wellness coach that Caroline felt like she had finally figured out exactly what her purpose was in this world. She knew she was always meant to be a coach, but so much more than just in a gym. She now sees herself as a healer that helps people address their mental, spiritual and physical wellness. At the heart of what she does is give people permission to be their true self. This, in turn, allows them to create a positive relationship with themselves. With exercise and a healthy diet, they can ultimately grow into the best version of themselves.
Caroline is an avid user of social media to further expand her community. Her preferred platform is YouTube, as she feels it’s most natural for her to communicate to her audience through video. She values the fact that having a presence online allows her to educate and really communicate who she is and what she does. As a result, she is able to reach the people who really need her.
“Social media allows you to attract your tribe.”
Her injury
As my own foot injury led me to Caroline, I was interested in hearing about her injury and healing
process.
It’s been about a year since her injury and she is still in the recovery process. She suffered a Sesamoid injury, which she told me is very rare and takes an extremely long time to heal. It seemed to come with no warning, as she hadn’t been experiencing any pain leading up to it. It appeared to have been the result of a lifetime of dance and high heels.
Gratitude is an underlying tone in all of Caroline’s videos, particularly the Hurt Foot series. When asked how she was able to find a silver lining, she told me that she’s always been a positive person and she credits her mom for passing on the optimism gene. Having faced many challenges throughout her life, she has taken each one as an opportunity to learn something from it. Her injury was no different.
As hard as it was, keeping her from doing what she loved most, it taught her to let go. It forced her to sit down with herself and ask what she would do if one day she was no longer able to live the physical life that she loved and valued so much. She told herself that she was more than just a body and decided to develop all the other parts of herself that make her awesome.
Her new self
Her new normal over the course of the past year has included mindfulness-based stress reduction, meditation, journaling and lots of quiet time. She’s become less social but feels comfortable with it. She’s allowed herself the space to be herself and she’s come to enjoy the solitude.
“I think that with every burden comes a blessing”. She believes that the blessing in hurting her foot was developing her YouTube channel and connecting to her life’s true purpose, which is to be a healer.
The success of her Hurt Foot following gave her incredible insight on her target audience. It fueled her newest venture, which is to explore the online coaching space. Caroline’s goal with this project is to teach women how to build a stronger body and feel good in their skin. You can enroll in the Strong Body Beautiful course here.
Caroline proved to be as kind, genuine, passionate and funny as she conveys in her videos and written work. She truly brings a luster to the fitness industry and, as she’s said, she’s “not your average fitness Barbie, but a coach that can help you heal your mind and body.” The real pleasure for me was just absorbing some of her positive energy.
Connect with Caroline on her channels:
@carolinejordanfitness
