About Us
Collective Wellness Revival was founded by Shannon McLay while she was being held in a mental health facility after a nervous breakdown led to her being taken out of her home, pantless in handcuffs. Yes, you read that correctly. If you don’t know Shannon McLay, she is a Gen X, eldest daughter, Type A overachiever who never would have imagined her life story would include a chapter in a mental health facility.
However, after 12 years of attempting to grow and keep her startup, Financial Gym, alive she forgot how to keep herself alive and growing as well. She dedicated the large majority of her 12 year journey to trying to please the 20+ investors, the 20+ employees and the 15,000+ clients of Financial Gym all while sacrificing time with her son, husband, friends, family and most importantly herself.
While in the facility, Shannon noticed the writing on a sweatshirt she had had for months said “Wellness Collective” and she felt it was a sign from God on where her journey should go next. She had always believed wellness had three pillars - physical, mental and financial; but after her breakdown she realized she was missing the fourth and most important - spiritual. Our spiritual house gives us a sense of connection to something greater than ourselves. Life is tough and it’s even tougher if we think this is all life has to offer.
Therefore, Collective Wellness Revival was established and is dedicated to helping people like Shannon focus on and improve their four houses of wellness. If you’ve ever taken a plane flight, you know you’re encouraged to put your own oxygen mask first; and the same is true in life. We need to take care of ourselves first or we won’t have anything left for what is truly important in this life. Spoiler alert - work is not what’s important in this life, even mission-based work like Shannon was doing at Financial Gym, it’s people.
How often do we shortchange the people in our lives in the pursuit of something work related? How often do we shortchange our own self-care in the pursuit of something work related? Shannon’s mission in this next chapter is to save as many people from the fate she suffered. No one should have to be taken out of their home in handcuffs to learn the important lesson of holistic wellness.
Why the Butterflies?
If you have ever met or known Shannon, you know that one of her love languages is analogies, and the butterfly analogy is one of those. Shannon has always been drawn to the symbolism of the life cycle a butterfly undergoes from living as a caterpillar and being tied to the earth, to the metamorphosis or “cocoon” phase where a caterpillar enters and a butterfly emerges to the butterfly stage where they are free to fly wherever they choose and live in beauty while feeding from flowers. Shannon believes our own life journeys are similar to this.
The butterfly analogy is essentially akin to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. When we are in our caterpillar era we are concerned with earthly needs and we’re learning the base level of lessons in life. The cocoon era is focused on taking all of those lessons and growing from them into a better version of yourself. The butterfly era is the culmination of all of that work where we get to enjoy the beauty of the painful journey of transformation.
Not all of us are here to become butterflies, in fact, most caterpillars have no idea they can even become a butterfly, but if you’ve found us, we have a sneaky suspicion that you are either a butterfly or a future butterfly and you’re interested in putting in the work and navigating the painful journey of transformation to experience something greater in this life.
If we are going to grow into butterflies, we need:
to focus on and prioritize the four houses of wellness - Soma (Physical), Mental, Financial and Spiritual. A true butterfly nurtures all of these houses on a regular basis.
a community dare we say a collective of supportive butterflies and future butterflies who can help us to learn, grow and recover from life.
to give zero f’s. In a world filled with fear and anxiety, butterflies give zero f’s because they know this earthly journey is not going to represent our final flight. If we do things right in this life, we’ll get our angel wings in the next. And doing the right thing for others in this world is becoming harder and that’s why we exist.
Contact us
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