Penny Hodgson was born in Weyburn, Saskatchewan in December 1965, put up for adoption and adopted by a Regina family in May of 1966. By 1974, doctors discovered Penny had severe bilateral hip dysplasia and would require extensive and specialized orthopedic surgery to keep her pain free and mobile. Penny’s surgeries began in 1975, spanned four provinces and continued well into adulthood. Her most recent orthopedic reconstructions were carried out in 2012 and 2013 in Calgary, AB by renowned orthopedic specialist Dr. Jason Werle at the Rockyview Hospital.
Penny’s life challenges weren’t limited to her skeletal deformity. She was molested by a family member as a young child and raped at the age of thirteen by the drunk father of the children she was babysitting. At the age of twenty-one, she married an addict. Her mother’s death eight years later, and before her thirtieth birthday, was a major turning point in Penny’s life. She began participating in private and group counseling, eventually rediscovering her self respect and regaining her personal power. She divorced a few years later.
The perspectives she developed during these experiences set the course for decades of resentment, distrust, and conflict in both her personal and professional life.
Penny accomplished a great deal in her professional life despite multiple surgical interruptions. She began teaching piano for The Academy of Music, a prominent music school in Regina, while still in high school, eventually becoming piano supervisor, clinician, and provincial adjudicator. Combining the school Director’s teaching notes, arrangements and the Royal Conservatory requirements at the time, she drafted the piano curriculum that would be used at this music school for many years. After over a decade of teaching, Penny moved into a full-time management administration position. The music school and adjoining retail operation was purchased by a large Canadian music retailer in the mid 1990s which allowed Penny to grow in her position eventually becoming the first woman to be promoted to an upper management position.
After nearly twenty-five years in the music business, Penny looked for something new. A year after leaving her long-term position, she started working for a plumbing and heating company, and before long began restructuring some of their accounting practices. During this restructuring, she discovered one of the managers had been committing fraud for quite some time and reported this to the owner. After reviewing the evidence, the company’s owner dismissed the employee and alerted police. The employee was arrested and charged with fraud over $5000. Working with police and a provincial prosecutor, Penny was key in helping to bring this fraudster to justice.
Throughout her life, Penny always tried to encourage and empower others who were struggling with emotional and/or physical challenges. She was a regular motivational speaker for patients and family members attending Regina Mental Health’s addiction services programs in the 1990s and was occasionally asked to speak to people facing similar orthopedic surgeries.
After thirty years in retail and operational accounting, Penny left the business world and turned her attention to helping others achieve a higher level of well being full time. A long-time student of health sciences, mythology, and philosophy, Penny become a certified holistic counselor and launched a wellness consulting service. Several years later, she added holistic nutrition certification to her credentials.
Her many years of providing music education to a wide range of ages and capabilities, combined with decades of training and managing staff, made Penny proficient in taking complex ideas and making them accessible to everyone. Utilizing these skills Penny devised a mental health program she uses in her holistic consulting practice she calls Mind Files: Perception, Perspective, and Problems. Her program was published in May 2018 in self-help format and is available worldwide.
