Winona Israel-Roberts
Winona Israel-Roberts, known as Coach Winona, is a trauma-informed integrative wellness coach, certified integrative nutrition health coach, grief counselor, and founder of IndigoKoi Wellness, LLC. Drawing from both her professional training and personal journey through autoimmune illness, she helps women navigate chronic illness, grief, and emotional exhaustion through compassionate, sustainable wellness practices.
Her holistic approach emphasizes mindfulness, restorative routines, environmental wellness, and nourishing lifestyle habits that support the whole person. Through IndigoKoi Wellness, Winona encourages individuals to build lasting well-being with practical, intentional self-care rooted in compassion rather than perfection.
For more wellness insights and resources, visit IndigoKoi Wellness at www.indigokoiwellness.com.
For those discovering your work for the first time, could you introduce yourself and share a little about your wellness journey and the inspiration behind IndigoKoi Wellness?
I am Winona Israel-Roberts, founder of IndigoKoi Wellness, LLC. Before I became a wellness coach and grief counselor, I spent years trying to understand what was happening inside my own body. My journey through lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, fibromyalgia, and mixed connective tissue disease was neither simple nor quickly resolved. There were years of unexplained symptoms, medical appointments, physical changes, emotional exhaustion, and the quiet grief of no longer recognizing the woman I had once been.
Illness can alter far more than the body. It can affect how you work, how you relate to others, how safe you feel in your own skin, and what you imagine for your future. My healing required more than a list of foods to stop eating or a schedule of medical appointments. I needed to understand nourishment, rest, stress, environmental exposures, emotional well-being, and the relationship between what I was carrying internally and how my body was responding.
IndigoKoi Wellness, LLC grew from that understanding. I wanted to create the kind of support I had needed—a place where people could be heard without being reduced to a diagnosis and where wellness could still feel possible, even when life had changed. Today, I help others build sustainable practices that honor the body they are living in now while gently reconnecting with the person they still are beneath the fatigue, fear, and disruption.
International Self-Care Day often encourages people to slow down and reconnect with themselves. What does “self-care” genuinely mean to you today?
Self-care, to me, is the ongoing practice of paying honest attention to what your body has been whispering before it has to shout. It is asking yourself, “What do I need in order to remain well?” and then allowing the answer to matter.
Sometimes self-care is restorative and beautiful. Sometimes it is drinking water before another cup of coffee, preparing food before becoming depleted, turning off the noise, setting a boundary, scheduling the appointment, or admitting that you are tired. It may also mean grieving what has changed instead of pressuring yourself to move past it before you are ready.
I no longer see self-care as something we earn after everything and everyone else has been handled. It is part of how we sustain the life we are working so hard to live. It is not an escape from our lives; it is a more intentional way of inhabiting them.
Many people associate self-care with occasional indulgences, but your work emphasizes long-term wellness and sustainability. What are some small, realistic daily practices that you believe can have the biggest impact over time?
The practices that shape our well-being are often unremarkable enough to be dismissed. Yet what might change if, instead of waiting for the perfect wellness routine, we became more attentive to what we repeatedly do?
Begin with hydration. Give your body water before the demands of the day begin. Allow natural light into your morning. Step outside, even briefly, and let your nervous system register that there is a world beyond screens, schedules, and responsibilities. Build meals by adding nourishment first—a source of protein, colorful vegetables, fiber, and healthy fat—rather than beginning with a punishing list of everything you believe you must remove.
Create small pauses between activities. Take three unhurried breaths before entering the next conversation or obligation. Stretch gently. Notice whether your shoulders are raised or your jaw is tight. Prepare for sleep before you are exhausted, and make the bedroom a place that signals rest rather than continued productivity.
Individually, these choices may appear small. Repeated over time, however, they teach the body that care is not a rare event. It is something it can expect.
How important is the home environment in supporting overall well-being, especially when it comes to stress, rest, and recovery?
Our homes are constantly communicating with our bodies. Light, sound, air quality, water quality, temperature, clutter, fragrance, and even the emotional tone of a room can influence whether we remain alert or begin to settle.
This becomes especially important for people living with chronic illness, autoimmune conditions, grief, or prolonged stress. When the nervous system has spent much of the day responding to demands, the home should offer cues of relief. That does not require a flawless or expensive space. It may begin with reducing unnecessary clutter in one room, lowering the lights in the evening, opening a window when conditions allow, choosing gentler household products, or creating one comfortable place where the body knows it is permitted to rest.
We often think of wellness as something we must go somewhere else to receive. Yet some of our most influential wellness choices are already surrounding us. The question is whether our environment is helping us recover from the day or continuing to demand more of us.
In your opinion, what role does the shower or bathing experience play in creating intentional moments of wellness or reset in everyday life?
The shower is one of the few places where many people naturally step away from their phones, conversations, work, and caregiving responsibilities. For several minutes, there is warmth, water, and privacy. That makes it a meaningful opportunity to come back into the body.
Rather than rushing through the experience, we can use the shower as a transition—from work into home, from caregiving into personal rest, or from a difficult day into a gentler evening. Notice the temperature of the water, release the shoulders, breathe slowly, and allow the mind to become quieter. Washing the day away may be figurative, but the sense of renewal can be very real.
The quality of that environment matters as well. Water temperature, ventilation, the products placed on the skin, and potential exposure to irritating substances all deserve consideration, particularly for people with sensitive skin or chronic health concerns. Intentional self-care asks us to consider not only what we do in the shower, but also the quality of the air, water, and products surrounding the experience.
What’s next for you and IndigoKoi Wellness? Are there any upcoming projects, offerings, or areas of focus that you’re especially excited about right now?
I am especially excited about expanding the educational and community-centered work of IndigoKoi Wellness, LLC. One area of focus is my upcoming book, Becoming Whole™: A Journey Back to Self, an intimate reflection and guided workbook rooted in my personal healing journey.
This fall, I am launching a local, in-person autoimmune support group in conjunction with the Autoimmune Association. And in response to requests from my community, I have the joy of bringing back, two of my online programs: Echoes of Well-Being: A Journey to Wellness™, a 12-week journaling and wellness experience, and The YOU, Before Your Diagnosis™, an eight-week immersive journey of self-discovery, healing, and identity reclamation.
The thread connecting all of these projects is simple: people deserve support that honors their full humanity. They deserve more than instructions. They deserve understanding, useful tools, and a steady place from which to begin again.
We often hear that some of the best ideas come to us in the shower. Have you had any interesting shower thoughts lately, especially related to your work or wellness?
One thought that has stayed with me is this: we speak often about “getting back” to ourselves, but what if healing is not always a return? What if it is also an introduction to the person we have become?
The woman who emerges after illness, grief, caregiving, burnout, or disappointment may not be the same woman who entered that season. That does not mean she has lost all that was good or familiar. It may mean she now understands her limits, her needs, and her strength with greater honesty.
Perhaps self-care is not about recreating a former version of ourselves. Perhaps it is about becoming acquainted with who is here now—and caring for her well enough that she feels safe to keep moving forward. That is one of the most powerful lessons my personal wellness journey has taught me, and it is a lesson I hope to share with as many people as possible.
A heartfelt thank you to Winona for being part of this conversation and for sharing her thoughtful perspective on intentional wellness, self-care, and healing. We're proud to highlight experts like Winona who inspire others to create sustainable daily rituals, embrace compassionate self-care, and build healthier, more intentional lives.
