I Thought My Story Was About Health. I Was Wrong. By Dede Murff, MCHC
Finding Your Anchor: How Life's Storms Teach Us What Really Matters
For years, I thought my story was about health.
After all, that's what people saw.
They saw the woman who was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis and refused to accept that her future would be defined by pain, medication, and limitation. They saw the woman who lost 45 pounds, placed her autoimmune disease into remission, became a Master Certified Health Coach, and spent more than a decade helping other women rewrite their own health stories.
But recently, I realized something.
My story was never really about health.
It was about learning how to stay anchored when life didn't go according to plan.
My Father's Lesson
Long before I became a health coach, I was a daughter watching resilience modeled every day. My father, who recently passed away at the age of 95, had what would be considered very little by the world's standards. He lost his own father when he was young and had only a limited formal education. Yet he built a beautiful life with my mother, raised six children, owned the grocery store he had always dreamed of owning, and loved people with extraordinary generosity.
He never seemed to view life through a half-empty glass. In fact, if you asked me, my dad saw life as three-quarters full.
He taught me that success isn't measured by titles, money, or accomplishments. Success is measured by faith, family, perseverance, and the lives you impact along the way.
I didn't realize it then, but those lessons would become the anchors I would need later in life.
Storms I Never Anticipated
Over the years, I have faced storms I never anticipated: chronic illness, supporting my husband through a heart attack, raising five children-including four through foster care and international adoption-navigating grief, family challenges, disappointment, and seasons where the future felt uncertain.
Like many women, I spent years believing that if I just worked harder, prayed harder, learned more, or controlled more, life would eventually become predictable.
It didn't.
And perhaps that's one of life's greatest gifts.
Because when everything you thought would hold you steady begins to shift, you discover what actually anchors you.
What Women Need Most
Today, as a keynote speaker and health coach, I have the privilege of walking alongside women who often feel unhinged by life's circumstances. They come carrying grief, health challenges, broken dreams, family struggles, unexpected diagnoses, and questions they never thought they'd have to ask.
What they need most isn't another quick fix.
They need an anchor.
They need to know that resilience isn't about avoiding storms. It's about learning how to remain steady in the middle of them.
Don't Chase Squirrels
I've also learned another important lesson: don't chase squirrels.
In a world full of distractions, opportunities, trends, and endless advice, it is easy to spend our lives running after things that were never ours to pursue. I've done it myself. But every time I've wandered away from my purpose, life has gently-and sometimes not so gently-called me back to what matters most.
For me, that calling is clear.
I want to help women become anchored.
- Anchored in their faith.
- Anchored in their values.
- Anchored in their purpose.
- Anchored in the truth that their greatest setbacks may actually become the foundation of their greatest impact.
My father's life taught me that.
And if my life reflects even a fraction of the faith, resilience, love, and integrity that he modeled so well, then I will consider my own life a success.
Because in the end, our greatest accomplishment isn't what we build.
It's who we become while building it.
