Rebecca's Media Mind-Body Resources
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Welcome, friend.
I’m Rebecca.

A wise woman once told me I could get well, even though I was sick and despairing. She showed me how, so now I can show you. This is the way we change the world. We heal ourselves and pay it forward.

I’m here to guide you, teach you a new way, tell you that you’re not broken, create a safe space to feel what was once too scary, lead you to the wisdom of your own body. I come to help you recover your energy, ease, personal power and self-love. This is the intention I hold for you.

 
 
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“Our healing potential is boundless and it’s not stored in a bottle. It’s as close as our breath, body, thoughts and choices. It’s as vast as the oceans of plenty and galaxies of stars.”
— Rebecca Tolin
 
 
 

I didn’t set out to be a mind-body coach or a life coach for that matter. Life led me here.

Once upon a time, I was a broadcast journalist reporting on exciting stories. Unexpectedly, while traveling abroad, I was assaulted. Soon after returning home, I fell ill with a virus that didn’t go away. I could barely get out of bed. My brain was on fire. I couldn’t recall names or simple words. It took all my strength to shower. At age 36, I was laid off from a career and life I loved. I went from being a globe-trotting TV news reporter to a sick person collapsed in bed.

The diagnosis was chronic fatigue syndrome, or ME/CFS as I came to know it all too well. Mysterious, incurable, hopeless. Doctors had other confounding names: Myalgic encephalomyelitis, fibromyalgia, Epstein-barr, post-viral syndrome, adrenal exhaustion, leaky gut syndrome, interstitial cystitis, parasites, you name it.

One doctor told me the virus crossed my blood-brain barrier and I’d likely have brain fog forever. That alone sent me into anxiety and depression.

Doctors never asked if anything stressful happened before this sudden illness. They never broached my emotions. I felt as though I was falling through a crack in the earth or dropping over a shelf in the sea. No one could catch me.

Six months into my personal catastrophe, an integrative doctor told me he considered it chronic and there was nothing he could do. Devastated, I searched fervently for a cure for more than a decade. My hopes soared and plummeted over the next treatment, healer, doctor, diet, superfood and wonder pill. But, still, I had a flu that never ended.

 
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Exasperated with striving, I eventually let go of trying to get healthy.

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Over the years, I began gentle yoga and transcendental meditation. Each day, these practices brought moments of peace. I gazed at the trees and listened to Eckhart Tolle. I read poetry and wrote my own poems. Days became simple contemplations.

I was sitting for long stretches when I began to notice: All of the world was alive and so was I. The physical symptoms were still present, but they weren’t a problem. I didn’t like the sensations but I wasn’t creating emotional suffering by resisting them. Then I realized: The deepest rest comes through acceptance. 

That state of mind opened me to a magical happenstance. I met a woman who shared how she healed from CFS. I began our phone conversation in bed with pounding head and body pain. When we hung up three hours later, I ran around the block! What happened in that miraculous conversation?

 
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I realized that healing was up to me, rather than them. I became my own medicine.

 

I learned about the intricate mind-body connection coined TMS, or Tension Myositis Syndrome, by the pioneering physician Dr. John Sarno. Repressed emotions and learned neural pathways were causing my symptoms—not a physical disease process. The symptoms were 100% real, but the root of the disorder was in my brain, not my body.

After that initial breakthrough, I spent the next eight months seeing a mind-body coach to calm my nervous system, retrain my brain, feel my emotions and expand my activities. I could once again work, workout and travel. It was a thrill to dance! A Zumba teacher told me I looked like a gleeful child. Indeed, I’d recovered my spirit. But I also realized the power of my beliefs and the value of my emotions. I realized that healing was up to me, rather than them. I became my own medicine.

After my recovery, I spent years studying mind-body coaching, somatic healing, the nervous system and other holistic modalities.

Today, I am grateful to do this sacred work, to help people like you recover your wellbeing and spirit.

 
 
 

student love

“Rebecca is a true expert, whose knowledge and approach surpasses all others in the field of recovering from mind-body symptoms. Her steady guidance and gentle encouragement infuses every aspect of the Be Your Own Medicine course, which is what truly sets it apart from anything else I've tried.”

- Sarah A., Massachusetts, USA

 
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Rebecca’s Biography

Rebecca Tolin is a mind-body practitioner who helps people recover from chronic fatigue, pain and other mind-body symptoms. Through teaching, coaching and writing, she empowers clients to find deeper healing and meaning. Rebecca marries science, somatic meditations and timeless wisdom in her work.

Rebecca has developed a system of healing from her 13-year journey with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS/ME). She emphasizes the role of emotions, stress and the brain in persistent fatigue and pain. Rebecca teaches people how to safely process emotions, regulate their nervous system, retrain their brain and find self-compassion.

For twelve years, Rebecca worked as a television news reporter for NBC, ABC and PBS affiliates. She now writes articles and produces videos in the mind-body space, including through her YouTube channel. Her work has regularly appeared in Yoga Journal, Mother Nature Network, San Diego Magazine and other publications.

At the heart of her work is a belief that we are more powerful than we’re led to believe and more resilient than we know. As we learn to accept and love ourself as we are, we find wisdom in our symptoms. We recover our vitality and light.

Rebecca lives in San Diego, California where she enjoys hiking in the canyons, swimming in the Pacific, cooking food from local farms and practicing yoga under the trees.

 

qualifications

  • Pain Reprocessing Therapy Training: certified in 4-week PRT practitioner training with therapist Alan Gordon

  • Endorsed Mind Body Coach: six-month training in advanced mind-body healing techniques with Abigail Morgan.

  • Beyond Pain: in-person intensive on TMS/Mind-Body Syndrome with Howard Schubiner and Alan Gordon

  • Freedom from Chronic Pain: Certificate of Completion in seven-week training with Howard Schubiner and Hal Greenham on practical neuroplasticity and the mind-body revolution in chronic pain treatment

  • Mindful Self-Compassion Core Skills:
    12-hour training with MSC co-founders Kristin Neff and Christopher Germer

  • Wayfinder Life Coach Training: eight-month life coach training with Martha Beck

  • Smart Body Smart Mind: Twelve-week course on healing at the nervous system level with Irene and Seth Lyon

  • Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction course at UC San Diego (8-week MBSR training)

  • Integrative Ayurveda: Training for medical professionals (level 1)

 
 
“You know when someone is in the zone, when they’re doing what they were born to do. That was what I felt watching, listening and feeling Rebecca!””
— Debi R, Maryland, USA
 
 
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