Meet today's guest:

Naomi Carmona-Morshead

Adventure Mountain Climber & Inspirational Speaker, Naomi Carmona-Morshead is passionate about inspiring Moms to achieve the profound dreams of living a healthy life while raising children. Co-authoring Amazon’s best-selling Women Who Rock, Naomi rocks the stage with empowering stories that reawaken dreams of Super Heroes, Warriors and satisfied souls so that every aspect of life is energized to climb to greater heights. In 2018, Positive Living Inspiration highlights women whose lives have been shifted despite a health challenge.

Imagine finding out at 3 years old that your heart has a murmur and isn't working the way it is supposed to work.

By the time you are 10 you were given a 50:50 change of survival so open-heart surgery was required.

Thrilled that you survive, imagine how that experience (and doctor's instructions) might affect your willingness to push yourself in life and do things other people don't even question.

My guest today doesn't need to imagine what this might be like, because she lived it. Naomi Carmona-Morshead is now over 60 and it's only been the last few years that she decided to remove the label of a heart patient and start truly living her life.

I didn't really take off the label of heart patient until I was 58 years old. So I didn't do the things that everyone does. I didn't even run my first mile until I was 15. What I'm able to do today starting at age 60 when I decided to follow my husband up higher and higher mountains is truly a gift and a pleasure – to be outdoors and experiencing what so many people have done all their lives.

Naomi shared her inspiring story that started with a decision to do a hand-stand (a 'no-no' for heart patients) and led to climbing 61 mountains in 3 years – including the highest free standing mountain in the world at 19,341 feet!

What shifted in her brain to make her decide to start living life full out? A hand-stand of course...

I was watching all of them struggle and I'm not a very large person, but there were a lot of people larger than me that kept pushing through. So I thought…Well, what's going to happen to me? I'm just going to do it…I'm going to trust the system. They had all the tools to help you get up and stay up and I just followed the system.
♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥
We had to do it 6 times over 3 days. I started out at 33 seconds and I ended at 1 minute 31 seconds. I was the oldest woman to do that and the only person to beat me was a Marine who was 30 years old.

Both Naomi and her husband lost their first spouses to disease, so they made a commitment to each other and themselves to be the healthiest every single day and healthier every year.

When Naomi's husband started coming home from his mountain climbing adventures exhilarated and transformed, Naomi had to know what was happening out there.

My husband was challenged to “reach higher” through a sermon during a church service, and so he literally started climbing higher mountains. He'd been backpacking 40 years so I was encouraging him, but he started coming back so transformed that I'm wondering, "What are you doing out there? What are you seeing? Who are you hanging out with?"
♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥
So, he started doing videos at the top of each mountain and I asked him, "For my 60th Birthday would you take me 9 miles, 9000 feet, in 9 hours?" He did and I became such an encourager of him that I followed him to Pike's Peak in Colorado. There you can drive to the top of the 14,115 ft mountain. He hiked and I drove.

At the top of the mountain Naomi's husband asked her to start the video and when she did he made a V with his arms and shouted, "Kilimanjaro".

"I want to go – where is it?" I responded. I had no idea it was the tallest free standing mountain in Africa…actually in the world. I didn't know it was 19,341 feet ; I didn't know that some people need oxygen to get there; I didn't know that only 60% who attempt the mountain actually reach the top…I just wanted to go with him.

In August of 2017, Naomi experienced a set-back when she fainted near the end of a climb after reuniting with her group.

It was mountain #54. We'd just been up to 9,800 feet and were walking out. I realize now that it was a stressful day because we'd gotten separated… so now we're on a sandy open, flat space along a river and I fainted and fell flat on my face
♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥
I had a concussion, my knees had contusions, which just means they're very bruised and they do not want to work.
♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥
.. I felt like someone had put a helmet on me which was confusing because I was wearing a baseball cap at the time…but someone, an angel, had protected me enough that I could get up, have lunch and walk 5 miles out.

Naomi now knows why this happened and shared with us the psychological challenge this new information presented for her.

She regaled us with stories of climbing ice mountains (glaciers!) in Ecuador using ice picks and wearing crampons (spiky fittings for your shoes). She also provided us with 3 key tips to help us all become superheroes of our own health and live an abundant life.

Listen to the podcastto enjoy Naomi's thrilling story, life altering tips and steps for putting it into action.

I call my living style Positive Living Inspiration so that everything I think and do is shifting me towards something. Focus is absolutely key and let me tell you when they take all your tools away and you have crampons on and there is an ice mountain ahead of you and they say go walk up that mountain… you better be focused. One step at a time. That's how you live it out.

Important extras:

Naomi has created a Superhero Health Quiz along with a brief video for you, so be sure to check that out!

Naomi's book Positive Living Inspiration is set to come out in September 2018. It is a collection of 25 stories of people who have made positive changes in their lives. If you're interested in writing a chapter for the book they are looking for pieces on: health, wealth and emotional freedom. Go to the website www.theBraveHeartShift.com to post your request and Naomi would be happy to talk with you.

You can also check out Naomi's Facebook page of the same name, PositiveLivingInspiration, where you will find quotes, videos and sample stories.

Finally, enjoy Naomi's blog: Mending100Hearts.wordpress.com which centers on a truly heart warming initiative her and her husband have taken on that we touch on in the show.