In this inspiring interview, autoimmune warrior Sharon Jones opens up about the emotional, physical, and spiritual challenges of living with chronic illness—and why resilience coaching wasn’t just helpful, it was life-changing. Sharon shares how she rebuilt her energy, confidence, and daily routines after hitting rock bottom, and what tools helped her thrive again. Whether you’re navigating autoimmune symptoms or supporting someone who is, this episode offers practical hope, mindset shifts, and powerful reminders that healing is possible.
Sharon Jones, is a Resilience Life Coach, who helps people, especially women living with autoimmune conditions reclaim their health, purpose, and confidence. She lives with Ankylosing Spondylitis, so she understands firsthand the challenges of chronic pain, disability, and the emotional toll illness can take. After navigating spinal surgery and years of trial and error, She now uses both her lived experience and coaching expertise to guide others toward balance, strength, and hope. Through my program Empowered Pathways and my podcast Thrive With Sharon, she shares practical tools and mindset shifts that show a diagnosis isn’t the end of the road, it can be the beginning of a new, empowered chapter.
Checkout her website and get a free guide: The 7-Day Resilience Tracker Notice What Triggers You and What Strengthens You- https://www.sjresiliencecoach.com/
Learn more about her story and the stories of others in the book- the Backyard Peace Project- https://amzn.to/3Xc5rit
My youtube channel with videos of this podcast and more.
https://youtube.com/c/annalaurabrownhealthcoach
Request a free foundations of wellness kit: https://forms.gle/jBoGuUSNJebET77B6
Watch my free 3 steps to an autoimmune energy reset: https://annalaurabrown.com/autoimmune-energy-webinar/
AnnaLaura Brown: So everybody today on autoimmune rehab I am happy to welcome Sharon Jones and she is going to be talking with us a little bit about her journey as having originally been diagnosed with I I know I’ll probably say it wrong but you know it’s it’s they use the abbreviation AS but stands for anosian spondiitis something similar to that to becoming a life coach to help people with autoimmune disorders and chronic warriors like we like to call them to thrive and not merely survive like I like to say. So, really happy to have you on here. So, Sharon, why don’t you start off by introducing yourself to us a little bit?
Sharon Jones: Yes. So, I’m Sharon. I was diagnosed with ankylosin spondilitis just over or 26 years ago now. Um, so it’s been a big part of my life and learning to live with it. Uh I started life coaching probably about seven years ago and then just put it back to the side and then picked up again. Um I’ve been doing it on and off within disability and mental health but then last year decided after my fifth surgery last year to do something within the community and help others and put it out there because realized there was nothing out there to help other women and other people with ankillosing spondilitis or and other autoimmune conditions.
00:01:21
Sharon Jones: So, I wrote a book um yet to be published. I’ve just published a chapter with Backyard Peace Project. And so, I’m on the way now of helping others learn to live daily with their condition and improve their lives.
AnnaLaura Brown: That’s awesome. I love it. That’s great. So, I know a little bit about what I’m just going to call it as because otherwise I’ll keep mispronouncing it. So, I know a little bit about what AS is because I actually interviewed, it’s probably been about two years now because it was back when the beginning when I was doing this podcast, another younger girl from the States, from the US who has that same condition. So, I know a little bit about it, but I am not, you know, definitely not an expert in it. I know a lot of our listeners, you know, especially if they haven’t heard that episode, will probably not really know what it is. So, explain to our users, you know, what exactly is it and how does it affect you?
00:02:15
Sharon Jones: So it’s a rare autoimmune disease that affects your majority of people it affects the spine. So your white cells when you sleep, your white cells heal your body. Our white cells attack our body. So rather than healing the body, it attacks our organs and our muscles and everything goes into spasm and we get really sore. Our bones get stiff. Our bones fuse and eventually they will crumble after they’ve fused. Uh so it’s all about the inflammation markers. So it’s living with the inflammation which increases and then the pain increases the bones stiffen movement is then reduced and mobility is reduced. So learning to live with it is more about keeping moving healthy diet reducing your sugars um your gluten dairy that sort of stuff. It’s a pretty strict diet and when you do fall off it, you have them flare-ups and the flare-ups are where the body does get sore and stiff and the bones just your whole body just aches in pain. Um, with my condition, I have it through my spine.
00:03:28
Sharon Jones: Um, my clavicle is all fused. I’ve had a spinal fusion to my C456. I have um recently or 12 months April just gone. I had a spinal cord stimulator inserted to reduce the pain. Um so I’ve got a battery pack in my bottom and I charge myself every two days and that reduces the pain that I’m in. It doesn’t take it completely away but does reduce it. Um because I’m allergic to opioids and codin so I can’t take pain relief other than paracetamol or ibuen. Um I was keeping busy. I did do Pilates and I did do physical culture. Um but I’ve had to stop that this year because I’ve had a major flare up and now my my right side’s now playing up and we’re trying to work out what we’re going to do with my right side. It’s more my shoulder and my arm. Um, it affects your vision. It affects your organs. Um, so generally everything starts to deteriorate with us and there’s no cure. It’s we can take biologics which are basically a chemical.
00:04:46
Sharon Jones: Um, so you’re putting a chemical into your body and you’re trying to cleanse your body and heal your body when you’re putting a chemical back in to try and reduce some inflammation markers.
AnnaLaura Brown: Yeah, it’s pretty uh it’s pretty dramatic. I know the other girl I talked to said it was pretty Yeah.
Sharon Jones: Yeah, it’s I didn’t know I had it because every time I was going back to the GP, he would just say, “Oh, it’s women’s problems. Just
AnnaLaura Brown: And she’s professionally a nutritionist, so it’s kind of, you know, she comes at that from that angle a little bit. But I So did you have you known you had it since you were pretty young then?
Sharon Jones: deal with it.” Um, so I thought that for a long time and then went to a friend took me to her GP and he saw the bruising on my legs and on my arms and he thought I was being abused at home because of the amount of bruising on me and said, you know, is everything okay at home? And I said, yeah, what it’s fine.
00:05:44
Sharon Jones: What do you mean? He said, you’re bruising. And I said, oh, that’s normal. He said, no, it’s not. He actually thought I had leukemia and did all the tests and it came back with as so I was diagnosed um early 30s. Um but I’d had the symptoms probably since I was about a teenager 13 12 13 um so it was just fighting with GP after GP until I found a good one who did the tests and came back positive. Um, generally the male gene carries it and passes it to the male and that’s why they always say it’s predominantly a male disease, but it’s actually not. A lot of females have this disease. Um, and I only found out probably four years ago that my mother got diagnosed with it maybe 10 years ago. Um, so that’s probably where I picked it up from.
AnnaLaura Brown: Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I remember the other girl I talked to saying it was genetic, too. But yeah, like I said, I’m you’re only the second person I’ve talked to that has it, and the other one’s a girl, too.
00:06:47
AnnaLaura Brown: So, it’s kind of, you know,
Sharon Jones: Yeah. Yeah. Since I’ve done my studies and I’ve put myself out there on Facebook and Instagram and that there’s so many females that have this condition. Um, and they just didn’t realize what it was. They just thought because it’s when you wake up, it’s your whole stomach that’s just cramped and you can’t you’re bent over, you can’t stand up. And when you go to the GP and tell them, especially a male GP, they just say, “Oh, go home. You’ll be fine. It’s women’s problems. Just deal with it.” Um, but yes, it’s it’s a tough one. And then I had to get my children tested, my girls, because I’ve got three girls, so I needed to get them tested. Um, when well, they made their own decision when they’re old enough to be tested. Now, they’ve got children, so they they’ll have to be tested because my girls have come back negative. um which is good, but then it may skip a generation and so we just don’t No.
00:07:47
AnnaLaura Brown: Yeah, that’s rough for sure. So, you obviously, you know, have branded yourself as a resilience coach and, you know, we’re sitting here talking and, you know, you seem like you’re doing pretty well for yourself. So, what would you say is something that people should know about, you know, your work as a resilience coach and what does that look like in real life?
Sharon Jones: In real life for me, it’s more about helping people with their mindset. It’s changing their mindset, positivity and that lifestyle change and knowing that there’s we can work together as a team, as a group, and just collaborate with each other. Share what share our wins and share the flare ups when people are down and they’re really depressed and then they’ve got nowhere to go. You know, I’m out there. I’m here to chat with anybody to talk about it to give them a few tips on how to manage through their day even just getting out of bed in the morning just them small tips of how just to slowly get out of bed.
00:08:50
Sharon Jones: Um warm showers in the morning. So I’m here for people with any autoimmune condition. Um my brother has celiac very sim you know it we know all about celiacs disease, diabetes. Um, a friend of mine’s got Hashimoto’s, um, Parkinson’s disease. I’m here for anybody just for a chat, you know, if I’ve got my works out there. I’ve got modules out there. I’ve got a program that I run. I’ve got free um journals on the on my website. Um, if they just click and leave that email, they’ll get my free journal where they can journal daily, which is a real positive where they can get it out onto the paper how they’re feeling and it just changes that whole mindset to positivity to get it out of their system. Because when you’re sitting there and you’re worried about it and you’re contemplating the woe is me, there are people out there. We are there. We are here. You’re there as well to help and give the positive feedback of what they need.
00:09:54
Sharon Jones: It’s sometimes somebody just needs somebody to talk to and they don’t know where to go and we’re here for them. A phone.
AnnaLaura Brown: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
Sharon Jones: Yeah. A phone call, a quick email. You know, it doesn’t cost. We’re not going to charge for that conversation of please help me. I’m here to help. I’ve been through the rough stages of things. I’m still going through it, but I’m not going to let it take me. We have to stay strong and be strong together.
AnnaLaura Brown: It’s awesome. I love that. Yeah, journaling is great. I really am a big advocate for journaling for sure. Absolutely. So, you talked about, you know, like working with people in groups as well. Is that what you do when it comes to your actual coaching is you do more like group programs that you run people through?
Sharon Jones: Yeah, I do work group programs. Um I just find because then they can bounce off each other and then they can join up with teams if they’re close to each other.
00:10:47
Sharon Jones: They can do coffee catchups. Um we can do coffee catchups over Zoom. I prefer the the group settings because it does get them all out there and talking and um I do do oneto ones as well. So people are struggling really and they don’t want to disclose how they’re feeling or what they’re going through. I do offer that onetoone as well.
AnnaLaura Brown: It’s awesome. That’s great. So, I know we mentioned a little bit, you know, about the warm showers, about taking one step at a time, that kind of thing. What else would you tell somebody who’s, you know, maybe they’re listening to this and they’re just overwhelmed, whether it’s AS or it’s ciliac or Hashimoto’s or whatever their diagnosis is, they, you know, probably are fairly new in the process and they’re just overwhelmed and they don’t know what to do. What kind of advice would you give them?
Sharon Jones: I would say just take a breath. Just sit down, take a breath. It will be okay. It seems like a long journey and I know when I was diagnosed, it took me a long time because it was a label and I didn’t want the label, but I needed the diagnosis to know what was happening to me.
00:11:55
Sharon Jones: So, just sit down and take that breath and just go, “I’m going to be okay.” There’s strategies out there. There’s people out there that can help you. And call a friend, your partner, and chat with them and just say, “Hey, I’ve just been diagnosed with this autoimmune. What am I going to do? How can how can you help me?” Just talk to somebody. Don’t hold it in because the more you hold it in, the harder it’s going to be to manage and be able to accept what you’ve been diagnosed with. So, take the time out, pick the phone up, send a message to a friend. You’ll be okay. You’ll get there. You just have to go through the motions of accepting.
AnnaLaura Brown: Yeah, that’s awesome. I love that for sure. That’s great advice. So, tell us a little bit more. I know you said you started writing a book. You’ve written one chapter. What other kinds of things do you feel like, you know, what’s the Do you have a title for the book yet or anything like that?
00:12:58
AnnaLaura Brown: And you know, if not, we’ll wait and maybe catch up at some point where we can actually explain a little bit more about the book. But I think that’s really cool.
Sharon Jones: Yeah, I don’t have a title for it yet. Um, but it’s all about autoimmune and a bit about me in there as well. Um, but once I just can’t decide on a title, so it’s I’m not sure which way to go with it. Um, but in the chapter, it’s about when I was diagnosed and how I felt and sitting on the floor and just crying and just not knowing what I was going to do. Uh, so that chapter that I’ve written and that’s just been published in another book, the backyard peace project book and that’s a group of coaches we’ve all put a chapter into the book and it’s just it’s in published now. It is on sale at the moment on Amazon, but that chapter is solely about me and my condition. And it’s the book is about me and my condition, but it’s also about how we can manage together and how to work through autoimmune conditions, not just ankalloing spondilitis.
00:14:09
AnnaLaura Brown: Awesome.
Sharon Jones: So yeah, it’s a really good book because it’s about a lot of different people,
AnnaLaura Brown: That’s great. Okay. So, we’ll link to the book then. If you give us the link to it, I’ll link to it so people can go check it out because it sounds like it’d be really helpful because it’s got stories from other people as well, too, and stories about how they’ve been through stuff. So, yeah, that sounds great.
Sharon Jones: coaches, and what they’ve been through before they got to where they are and where they got why they got into coaching. So the stories are just amazing. It’s a whole It’s Yeah, it’s a real tearjerker to see where people have come from and it’s open and raw. So it’s it’s a really amazing book.
AnnaLaura Brown: That’s awesome. That sounds great. So, I know you also have a podcast as well yourself called Thrive with Sharon. Real talk for chronic illness warriors. Tell us a little bit about your podcast and what your goals and focus is on your podcast.
00:15:08
Sharon Jones: So my podcast is fairly new. Um, it’s only been running oh probably about six weeks now, so maybe a little bit longer. Um, and it’s basically just talking about autoimmune anklosing spondilitis. It’s more about getting myself out there. Um, it was a bit hard to do because being open and upfront with people and they’re listening to your story, they’re listening to you and it’s like, well, it was a bit confronting for me to do. Um, because it’s something I’ve wanted to do for a long time and then I was just, okay, let’s just do this. Just let rip the band-aid off and do it. So, it’s just it’s only three minutes. I haven’t got past that yet. It’s just a little blur of autoimmune, this is what we can do. Giving them a few little tips on if they’re having a flare up or if they’re having a bad day. Um, so yeah, it’s just general tips on what to do with autoimmune conditions and where they’re coming from and what what we’re in the same predicament.
00:16:17
Sharon Jones: We’re all struggling with something. Um, so it’s just something small at the moment, just little snippets so people can just listen and go, okay, whoa, I can do that. I can just sit down and meditate for five minutes or three minutes. Just take that breath, take that time out. I can do some journaling. I can go for a small walk. I can make myself a green tea and just sit in the sun. So, it’s just little snippets of ideas and recommendations for people with autoimmune conditions.
AnnaLaura Brown: That’s awesome. I love it though. You know, like short, sweet, to the point type of stuff.
Sharon Jones: Yeah. Yeah.
AnnaLaura Brown: Awesome. So, before we end, obviously, we’ll we’ll include the link. Looks like uh so she’s Sharon’s offering everybody who’s listening to this a free guide on your 7-day resilience tracker for you to notice what triggers you and what strengthens you, which I think is amazing. So, we’ll make sure we have a link to that in the show notes.
00:17:19
AnnaLaura Brown: And before I ask you the last question, is there anything else that you wanted to share that we didn’t talk about yet?
Sharon Jones: Um, no. I just think if you’re out there and you’re listening and you are struggling, then do reach out. Do take that step because I I understand it’s hard and I know where you’re coming from because I’m living it every day. So, there’s no better person than to reach out to than somebody that’s got that understanding and that does live through it every day.
AnnaLaura Brown: Absolutely. For sure. So, the last question I always like to ask all my guests is if you could go back in time to let’s say the day that you got your diagnosis with AS, what is one thing that you didn’t know now that you know now that you wish you’d known that you feel like would have been beneficial?
Sharon Jones: I think knowing that keeping mobile at the time I wasn’t told it was basically you’ve got this disease you just need to accept it and you’ll be in a wheelchair in six months and I just was like Okay,
00:18:26
AnnaLaura Brown: Whoa. Yeah.
Sharon Jones: what do I do with this? And if somebody had said to me, oh, you may be in a wheelchair in six months. However, if you keep mobile and active, then you can prolong that. Um, and I I didn’t I just sort of sat there and did the whole woe is me, this is not fair. Um, and just having somebody else that understood the disease would have been good for me because I was given no nothing to read, nobody to contact who specializes in the disease. They had to try and find somebody that I could go and see that specializes in the disease. Um, so I think for me it was about knowledge and having somebody knowledgeable who specializes in the disease, but then also somebody to tell me, you need to move. You need to be mobile. And it took me three months to do that because I said, I’m not going to be in a wheelchair. And here I am. I’m not in a wheelchair. I’ve had a few surgeries, but I’m still walking around. I’m still doing what I want to do. So I think that would be the main for me. Yeah.
AnnaLaura Brown: That’s awesome. That’s great. Okay, so thanks for coming on, Sharon. And like I said, we’ll have her information about her offer, how you can connect with her in the links to the show notes. So, please reach out if you feel like this has resonated at all with you. And thanks for coming on and sharing with us.
Sharon Jones: Thanks, Anna Laura. Have a great day.
AnnaLaura Brown: Yeah, you too.
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