Elise Jones: Choosing joy while living with heart failure, emotional health and resilience, and living by the mantra ”share your heart”

Elise was diagnosed with atrial septal defect in 2009, had open heart surgery in 2016, and was diagnosed with congestive heart failure in 2021. She also had lung resection surgery this past November. As she shares her story we learn that although her ongoing heart health difficulties have brought about many ups and downs and physical and emotional challenges, Elise has chosen to focus on joy, gratitude, and doing the things she loves. We discuss learning to trust yourself and listen to your intuition when it comes to health and other areas of life, building friendships and serving others through disaster, and how beautiful things can manifest from hard things. We also get to hear how Elise and her family fulfilled one of her lifelong dreams of hiking to the base camp of Mount Everest in 2017!   Elise is a married mother of two daughters in college. She is a yoga therapist, yoga alliance teacher and trainer, certified in several genres in yoga and fitness, and has been teaching fitness classes for 19 years. She's also a roller skating fitness certified instructor and teaches it in different locations around Utah (so fun!). She is the founder of Utah Yoga and Wellness where she hosts wellness retreats, and is a semi-retired river guide.   Elise is a delightful and inspiring person and is truly living by her mantra "share your heart." Thank you so much to Elise for being on our podcast, we absolutely loved talking and connecting and can't wait to go to one of her skating classes!   Find Elise on Instagram @elisejonesyoga where she shares about emotional health and resilience, choosing joy, and is such an uplifting account to follow. Learn about her wellness retreats at utahyogaandwellness.com and on Instagram @utahyogaandwellness