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Join Louise Neil, Nikki BakerWulf, Laura Lively, Sara Doell, and Kim Romain as we come together each week to entertain, inform, engage, and inspire our listeners through stories, experiences, and reflections about the best parts of life as a woman.
Episodes
Tuesday Jun 01, 2021
Tuesday Jun 01, 2021
Picking up where the co-hosts left off in the last episode, Louise wants to dive deep into pleasure. She asks her co-hosts, Nikki, Sara, Kim, and Laura where is a place for you beyond guilt, maybe even beyond joy?
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Tuesday May 25, 2021
Tuesday May 25, 2021
Kim brings up Guilty Pleasures, asking her fellow coaches to weigh in on what they do that they consider guilty pleasures, and then challenges them to consider if there should be ‘guilt’ at all. Tune in as all the coaches, Kim, Sara, Laura, Louise and Nikki talk through what they view as guilty pleasures and whether the word “Guilt” does or should even apply.
Where to find The Best Parts Team:
Tuesday May 18, 2021
Tuesday May 18, 2021
Laura brings up the topic of “Affirmations” which she and her fellow coaches, Sara, Kim, Nikki and Louise all feel often get a bad rap. Listen in as they quickly fall down the rabbit hole of woo-woo vs. retraining the neural pathways in your brain, and how each of them has interacted with affirmations or something similar in their own history.
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Tuesday May 11, 2021
Tuesday May 11, 2021
Sara tees up the question to her cohosts: What are the things that we cannot see that are taking up space in our minds, in our lives? A messy linen closet? An inability to manage paperwork? Or is it something more intimate? Listen in as Kim, Nikki, Louise, and Laura share with the audience the things that drive them crazy and keep them stuck. Some are outward-facing, some not so much. And then ponder the question: What drains your energy?
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Tuesday May 04, 2021
Tuesday May 04, 2021
Nikki asks her co-hosts, “What are you not doing that you could be doing? What are the things on your wishlist, your want list, your someday list that you could actually be doing right now?” Kim dreams of sleep and refreshing her French, Louise seconds the desire to learn French. Laura can’t get past her “shoulds” to decide what she wants to do and Sara says she does everything she wants. Nikki rounds out the group by wanting to learn to play Dungeons and Dragons. Then the conversation takes a right turn into fear, desires, and privilege. Tune in and answer the questions for yourself: what are you NOT doing that you could be?
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Tuesday Apr 27, 2021
Tuesday Apr 27, 2021
Social Media: pain or pleasure? Necessary or just a waste of time? Louise shares her concerns about Social Media and asks her fellow coaches to weigh in. Does she have to be on social media to promote her business? Ask yourself: how many social media platforms are you connected to? Does Fear of missing out (FOMO) keep you adding new platforms and scrolling through entries?
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Tuesday Apr 20, 2021
Tuesday Apr 20, 2021
Is wasting time a waste of time? Laura poses this question to her fellow coaches, and they come down firmly on both sides. Sara is very much against wasting time. Nikki shares how learning to honor her own process keeps her from feeling as if she’s wasting time. Louise wastes time on the regular and has mixed emotions about it and Kim is all for it. What do you think?
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Tuesday Apr 13, 2021
Tuesday Apr 13, 2021
Everyone has heard of the benefits of having personal morning rituals or morning routines. How do you create rituals for your business? Kim shares how she creates visuals to help her not only with clients but to help her create and grow her business. Upon unpacking the idea, most of the coaches found that they did do something similar in order to help them transition throughout their day and the various roles they all play throughout the day. Listen in and get curious about how rituals, routines, or habits impact your day.
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Tuesday Apr 06, 2021
Tuesday Apr 06, 2021
Sara brings up the sensitive topic of Body Image as she shares her own journey during the COVID-19 pandemic and how on one hand she’s proud of her body and on the other hand, she’s struggling with what she’s seeing in Zoom on a daily basis.
Listen in as Kim, Laura, Louise, and Nikki share their own journeys with their own body image, the body positivity movement, and radical self-love vs. radical acceptance.
Where to find The Best Parts Team:
Tuesday Mar 30, 2021
Tuesday Mar 30, 2021
Join Nikki as she kicks off Season 4 with her cohosts, Sara, Louise, Laura, and Kim and they discuss the music that defined their lives. Among the topics they cover is how a single line in a song can evoke an emotion long forgotten. They discuss earworms and wonder that though you might not remember what you walked into the kitchen for, just a few notes of a song will transport you to another time where you vividly remember everything as if it just happened.
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Tuesday Mar 23, 2021
Tuesday Mar 23, 2021
Tune in this week for some of our wacky, weird, and wonderful outtakes. Pull up a chair and let the hilarity ensue!
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Tuesday Mar 16, 2021
Tuesday Mar 16, 2021
Tune in this week for some of our wacky, weird, and wonderful outtakes. Pull up a chair and let the hilarity ensue!
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Tuesday Mar 09, 2021
Tuesday Mar 09, 2021
What does Mrs. Doubtfire, The Talented Mr. Ripley, Catch Me If You Can, Yentl, and Six Degrees of Separation have in common, other than being fabulous movies that Louise loves? They all depict a character who is impersonating someone. And today Louise asks her cohosts Nikki, Kim, Sara, and Laura, how do you show up in your own life feeling like an imposter?
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Tuesday Mar 02, 2021
Tuesday Mar 02, 2021
Call it flow, call it the zone, awareness, ease or call it mindfulness, Nikki talks with her co-hosts, Laura, Sara, Louise, and Kim about what flow is, isn’t, and how can you bring more of it into your life. Nikki believes it is possible to cultivate flow and the coaches are intrigued to hear more.
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Tuesday Feb 23, 2021
Tuesday Feb 23, 2021
Pull us a chair with Nikki, Louise, Kim, and Laura as Sara tees up the question - why does our culture tend to pretend the bad things aren’t happening, encouraging us to just push through and 'be happy'? Tired of looking at the bright side and bypassing what's really coming up, Sara shares that she’s been struggling lately one day feeling really high and then really low the next. The discussion of glitter on poop takes some interesting twists, the wisdom of riding (literal) rollercoasters paints come pictures, and how to make things a bit easier without ignoring what's coming up gives everybody some insight into feeling the feels. Join the conversation!
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Tuesday Feb 16, 2021
Tuesday Feb 16, 2021
Join Kim as she quizzes her cohosts, Sara, Laura, Louise, and Nikki about what fears - irrational or otherwise - that they may have...and are willing to admit to.
The big questions are asked: who decides what makes a fear irrational?
What should you be afraid of that you aren’t?
Pull up a chair and join us to find out who is afraid of frogs, umbrellas, and rooms full of balloons!
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Tuesday Feb 09, 2021
Tuesday Feb 09, 2021
Join Laura, Sara, Nikki, Louise, and Kim as Laura asks the question: how do I live in the now yet prepare for the future? As they weigh-in, the conversation turns into a tip-filled episode of how mindfulness exercises have helped not only their clients but the coaches themselves.
Where to find The Best Parts Team:
Tuesday Feb 02, 2021
Tuesday Feb 02, 2021
Nikki poses the question to Sara, Kim, Louise, and Laura, “Would you rather fit or stand out?” Thus launches a discussion that takes the co-hosts back to childhood, high school, post-college, learning to navigate dress codes in corporate settings, and finally owning their own businesses. Spoiler: it’s not an either-or answer. It’s “Yes, and…”
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Tuesday Jan 26, 2021
Tuesday Jan 26, 2021
Pull up a chair and join us as we talk about how to know when to make a change in a relationship?
Join Sara, Kim, Nikki, Louise and Laura as they discuss the process of knowing you need to make a change long before it actually occurs and barriers to ending it or changing the relationship. Each coach shares their own predilection for ending relationships and discuss how they might like to change those behaviors going forward.
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Tuesday Jan 19, 2021
Tuesday Jan 19, 2021
Join Laura, Sara, Kim and Nikki as Louise poses the question: What did you want to be when you grew up?
Pull up a chair for a conversation about the pros and cons of having a single path followed from childhood vs. having a diffuse set of passions woven through life, how passions and childhood interests can serve now in a career, hobbies or living through a pandemic.
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Tuesday Jan 12, 2021
Tuesday Jan 12, 2021
Join Sara, Louise, Kim, Nikki, and Laura as they talk about a fun part of the language that we all use but may not recognize, idioms.
An idiom is defined as a group of words established by usage as having a meaning not deducible from those of the individual words (e.g., rain cats and dogs, see the light ).
Listen in as they get wrapped around the axle about bunny hugs, taking the piss, and something to do with a hopper and whether or not slang is just another word for idiom.
Topics
- Regional idioms
- Idioms vs. slang
- Where is an English major when you need one?
- Letting yourself off the hook
Where to find The Best Parts Team:
Tuesday Jan 05, 2021
Tuesday Jan 05, 2021
Looking to join us with your favorite coffee on the orange couch in Central Perk? We're so glad you're here!
Pull up a chair (or couch!) as Sara, Nikki, Louise, Laura, and Kim settle in for a fun and deep conversation as they wade through the wisdom, memories and connections that have been made through the iconic TV show Friends.
Topics:
- Which Friends character are you - or do you identify as multiple?
- Are you the main character in your own life?
- What popular TV hangout would you make your own?
- Is it possible to have a favorite guest star?
Where to find The Best Parts Team:
Tuesday Dec 29, 2020
Tuesday Dec 29, 2020
Care for a laugh? A giggle? An eye roll and a smile? Join us for another bonus episode - season two outtakes!
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Monday Dec 21, 2020
Monday Dec 21, 2020
Pull up a chair and join us for our discussion into the longest night of the year, the winter solstice. We reflect on cycles, traditions, lights, magic, resolutions and uncovering if we're motivated more by a 'move away' or 'move towards' mentality.
May your feet and your heart stay warm on Winter Solstice.
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Tuesday Dec 15, 2020
Tuesday Dec 15, 2020
Care for a laugh? A giggle? An eye roll and a smile? Join us for another bonus episode - season one outtakes!
Where to find The Best Parts Team:
Tuesday Dec 08, 2020
Tuesday Dec 08, 2020
Tune in this week for some of our wacky, weird and wonderful outtakes. Pull up a chair and let the hilarity ensue!
Tuesday Dec 01, 2020
Tuesday Dec 01, 2020
Join co-hosts, Kim, Laura, Louise, Nikki, and Sara as they take stock of 2020, wrapping up Season 2. Looking back at 2020, they discuss the good bad, and ugly, including being honest about some days being a 4 out of 10, maybe even a 2 out of ten. Who would and wouldn’t take a magic redo in 2020. They also discuss what they wouldn’t want to change as the calendar flips over into 2021 and what Season 3 of the podcast might look like.
Topics
- 2020 started as a sprint. It turned into a freaking triathlon.
- Learning to accept what is.
- What would they change about 2020, if they could
- What they want to continue in 2021
- Looking forward to Season 3 of The Best Parts
Where to find The Best Parts Team:
Tuesday Nov 24, 2020
Tuesday Nov 24, 2020
Are you focusing on what's wrong or what's working?
Today, we pull up a chair with Dr. Mel Krug, Network Spinal Practitioner and Business Mentor Join us as as we walk through the differences of focusing on what's working versus focusing on your ‘weaknesses’ or your ‘un-strengths’ (as Louise likes to call them); the study of disease versus the study of health; and how the challenges and wounds of life can lead to our biggest gifts and triumphs.
Dr. Mel's resource for mastering anxiety: https://www.inspirelifechirocenter.com/masteringanxiety
Topics
- The body as its own healer
- Tips for getting out of your head and into your body
- The gift of being unapologetically yourself
- Salutogenesis, the study of health
- System Energetics
- Breath physiology
Where to find Dr. Mel:
https://www.inspirelifechirocenter.com/
Where to find The Best Parts Team:
Tuesday Nov 17, 2020
Tuesday Nov 17, 2020
If you're acting like a jerk - are you a jerk or is that only a part of who you are?
In this episode, we pull up a chair with author, support group leader and emotional healing coach Karen Locke. We talk about how to start falling in love with yourself, what challenging parts of yourself are actually there for, how working with your parts opens you up to the humanity of others, and crossover concepts with different areas like NLP and yoga.
We wrap it up with a lightning round that is heavy into the Minnesota love!
Also - don't forget to check out Karen's book Self-Compassion Day by Day.
Topics
- Recognizing that having Parts creates space to explore those parts
- Using slow breathing as a springboard into Self Energy
- Learning to recognize, and appreciate parts instead of trying to push them away
- Different and unique ways that parts work can be applied from various perspectives
- The language of parts work
Where to find Karen:
www.emotionalhealingcoach.org/
Where to find The Best Parts Team:
Tuesday Nov 10, 2020
Tuesday Nov 10, 2020
In this episode, Nicole Ralston, Business Coach, and Strategist join the co-hosts to discuss her unique take on productivity, the importance of being true to who you are, particularly for those starting a business. The co-hosts and Nicole talk about the value of adding somatic work into daily life, and what it means to be in integrity with the various roles in life: at home and work, as it relates to creativity, and showing up in a community.
Topics Discussed:
- A new spin on productivity. It’s not how much you get done but what value are your actions and tasks adding to your life
- Embracing the authenticity of who you are, in all of your roles
- The benefits of somatic work Alignment with who you are
- Intersectionality of all the roles in your life
- Creativity - any time you’re
- Tornado Brain
- Acting in service to others vs being in service to yourself
- The power of routines
Where to find Nicole Ralston:
Website: https://www.nicoleralston.com/
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/nicoleralston_/
Where to find The Best Parts Team:
Tuesday Nov 03, 2020
Tuesday Nov 03, 2020
Louise takes over as moderator as the 4-US based co-hosts talk about personal experiences and how everybody is managing in the highly volatile weeks leading up to the US Presidential Election.
As the resident Canadian, Louise has a slightly different perspective and holds space for Nikki, Laura, Kim and Sara to talk about how this election feels different than others in the recent past.
This episode isn't here to tell you how to vote. We decided to create a bonus episode for election day to let you know that we see so many of the struggles in the United States right now and how it's affecting people - and we're riding the election roller-coaster feels right along with you.
Pull up a chair and join us as we talk about :
- Managing personal emotions as well as those of our immediate families
- What we can do to make a difference in a US election in the time of a pandemic
- Managing relationships with people who vote differently
- Holding hope for the future
Tuesday Oct 27, 2020
Tuesday Oct 27, 2020
Can you actually decide to be joyful? How do you intentionally and consciously shift your emotions in the direction of joy?
Today we’re talking to Paula Jenkins, founder of Jump Start Your Joy. She is a wife, mom, dog lover and a student of joy! Her mission is to bring more joy into the world through coaching, podcasting, and helping others create their own podcasts to share their voice.
We dive into how joy can show up, how to handle things in time when we feel deficient in joy, and how taking action is important on the journey toward joy.
We veer into the paths of some cultural norms and look at the concept of 'bigger is better' - and how playing small can have unexpected benefits...especially when we're talking about joy.
Paula can be reached at:
Website: www.jumpstartyourjoy.com
Podcast: Jump Start Your Joy
Twitter: @jumpstartjoy
Pinterest: @jumpstartjoy
Instagram: jumpstartyourjoy
Where to find The Best Parts Team:
Tuesday Oct 20, 2020
Tuesday Oct 20, 2020
Communication is something we take for granted. After all, most of us talk all day long without giving it much conscious thought. But are we really communicating in the way we think we are?
Communication Specialist Betsy Butterick pulls up a chair with The Best Parts co-hosts today to discuss the skill of communication, the importance of being intentional with that communication, and how communication is a form of connection. We geek out about active communication, the nuances of language and how to ensure that the message you're intending to send is the one actually received. Betsy shares some of her Active Communication Techniques (ACTs) that you can practice and use to improve your everyday communication skills.
Betsy is the Coaches Coach, working with sports coaches in the professional, college, and high school arena, to help them foster better communication with their team. She is also a communication specialist with a background in athletics and a talent for people-centric design. She offers an experiential approach toward learning and development and also improves communication effectiveness while strengthening relationships and working collaboratively to create positive change.
Where to find Betsy:
Website:
https://www.betsybutterick.com/
YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/user/BetsyButterick/videos
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/betsythecoachescoach/
Twitter:
https://twitter.com/betsybutterick
Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/betsy_thecoachescoach/
Where to find The Best Parts Team:
Tuesday Oct 13, 2020
Tuesday Oct 13, 2020
Join our co-hosts, Kim, Laura, Louise, Nikki, and Sara as they kick off Season Two, trying to remember if this is Marchgust or Septober or what, as the COVID-19 Pandemic continues on and wildfires and hurricane continue to batter the United States, racial injustice and the upcoming elections are the backdrops as Nikki asks the question: how do we dismantle this idea of “normal.”
A high energy conversation ensues as Kim quickly weighs in that the word normal has always been a hot spot. The coaches weigh in quickly on how making something ‘normal’ implies a normative that rarely works for anyone. Worse, it has the effect of “othering” people or making them feel “abnormal” as Laura pointed out.
As the co-hosts consider whether or not we could “go back to normal,” Louise points out “We don't go backwards. We only go forwards.”
Nikki’s next question around how the co-hosts are managing when people around them don’t have the same values, Laura was quick to jump in and talk about how she was seeing more littering in a nature area and it was very frustrating. Examining all of the parts she was aware of and the stories she began spinning around why people would behave in such a manner, set off a spirited conversation where everyone examined their own assholish natures. Yep, we’ve all got a little bit of an asshole in us, but the discussion turned to the importance of having those emotions move through us and not getting squashed down, as Nikki mentioned.
Kim and Louise open up about having panic attacks in public places since COVID-19, and again the criticality of feeling our emotions and acknowledging them.
The conversation switched gears when Nikki asked what the co-hosts were doing to ensure they had the support they needed during this unsettled time.
Unsurprisingly, working out was big on Sara’s list, and connection topped the list of most everyone else. Each co-host also shared tidbits of how they ensured self-care stayed front and center on a daily basis, from a daily documentation of life in lockdown, to gratitude lists, meditation, and making sure their own needs were met.
Tuesday Sep 08, 2020
Tuesday Sep 08, 2020
Join our co-hosts, Louise, Laura, Sara, Nikki, and Kim as they reflect on the themes that came up during Season One, beginning with how they all, at some point in their lives felt ‘other than. ’
Sara shares a quote that sets off a spirited discussion on the hardest step is step zero to one.
Kim shares her philosophy that we all start at ‘zero’ every day, but we often don’t realize that we’re moving on auto-pilot and making choices out of habit instead of intentionality.
The discussion takes off as the group talk about regardless if you’re talking about moving your body, your career, your home, how taking that first step from zero to one can be the most terrifying and yet, the most freeing.
They discuss how taking that step energetically opens the door on your journey, allowing those things we no longer need to fall away, and drawing experiences, people, and places to you.
This leads to a rousing discussion about Lumberjacks and Lipstick, led by Laura, that you won’t want to miss.
Louise and Sara share what having this community means to them and Nikki lets you know where to find them during their downtime and teases up surprises on social media that you won’t want to miss!
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[00:00:00] Louise: "I don't wanna" is way different than "I can't."
[00:00:03] Laura: Hell, I can wear any lipstick I want.
[00:00:05] Sara: So, I know where my lipstick story comes from.
[00:00:08] Nikki: Lumberjacking is not my jam.
[00:00:11] Kim: This episode brought to you by The Lumberjack Association.
[00:00:19] Laura: Hi, I'm Laura.
[00:00:21] Sara: Hi, I'm Sara
[00:00:22] Kim: And I'm Kim.
[00:00:23] Nikki: This is Nikki,
[00:00:25] Louise: And I’m Louise.
[00:00:27] Kim: Hi, and welcome to The Best Parts Podcast, where we invite you to pull up a chair and think about your best parts, which are all your parts.
[00:00:36] Nikki: Hello everyone. This is Nikki, and I'm inviting you to pull up a chair and join us today for Episode Seven. Our very last episode of our very first season. There's a lot of ground to cover today. So, let's just dig right in. We as a group had quite a bit of discussion about how we wanted to wrap up our first season. We've learned a lot of things had a bit of redos, struggled, fell down, popped up, gotten excited, discouraged, and had all the feels.
[00:01:04] Nikki: It has been a journey that brought us to today. We've also started discussing what's coming around the bend for season two. So stay tuned for that. Ultimately, since I'm back at the moderator microphone, I was given the responsibility of figuring out what the heck we still had to say. And as part of that awesome responsibility, I just went through and binged all of our past episodes.
[00:01:24] Nikki: We have a few things that keep showing up for us this season, and I'm just going to list them out after listening to all of our amazing episodes, which still made me laugh and have fun. Many of us came from a place of feeling "wrong," or "other than” and we just didn't fit in. The necessity of starting where we are right now to intentionally move life forward, going to say the next one with a big gulp, because we spend over 90,000 hours at work and it still hits me in the gut to think about that.
[00:01:52] Nikki: Reinvention requires us to consistently make conscious and intentional choices that move us in a new direction. Taking the first step creates momentum. There is power in saying yes to what lights us up. We have one body in this life and we are responsible for it. Integrating all the who's and the roles we exist in allow us to experience the fullness of life and live holistically.
[00:02:14] Nikki: We have a unique view, unique limitations, and unique passions, and that's all a great thing. There is power in knowing our parts, leaning into a space where we are safe to be ourselves accepted as we are today, encouraged to keep going, and held when we struggle is transformational. And of course, all the parts are the best parts.
[00:02:34] Nikki: Oh, and spirit animals.
[00:02:35] Kim: Yeah. The spirit animals.
[00:02:38] Sara: I saw something the other day. And this came up with a group that I'm running this week too, is you said the, something about that taking the first step. And I saw a quote that said, "the most difficult step is zero to one." And I think that's a theme that's come up throughout is just getting started sometimes is the most important step for us.
[00:02:58] Sara: Uh, and we've seen that through all of the things through all of our themes throughout the entire season is just getting started. The momentum and a body in motion stays in motion. That thing that I came up with.
[00:03:09] Nikki: Sara's most famous quote. Yes. Yeah.
[00:03:12] Sara: So, I don't know. That's just one that really stands out for me.
[00:03:15] Nikki: Why do you think it's so hard, Sara?
[00:03:17] Sara: Um, fear. I think a lot of people are afraid to start, like whether it's with movement or working with a life coach or decide to talk to their parts or change a career. I think its fear of what if and what if it doesn't go the way I want? And that very first step can be really scary. Like we talked about jumping off the cliff or starting our parasailing, right.
[00:03:39] Nikki: Kim's stomach dropped.
[00:03:43] Sara: So, I just think that's what it is. It's fear. And once you start moving towards a goal, I think it gets easier and easier.
[00:03:49] Louise: Do you think that we ever skip over that step?
[00:03:52] Kim: No.
[00:03:53] Nikki: Do you think we skipped from do you mean like maybe go zero to two?
[00:03:57] Louise: Yeah, maybe it's zero to two because I was just thinking when we talk about being intentional, it's really understanding that you're there at zero. It's being fully present and knowing that first step is, although very scary, is something that you really want to do. There's a connection there. I feel like sometimes in my life, I guess I've gotten to a place where I'm on step, like five or six.
[00:04:25] Louise: And I don't remember that step zero to one. I don't remember being intentional to take that path. Like I think we do it in our relationships. We do it in our careers. We do it financially that we get to a point where we haven't been present to make that intentional zero to one. We've it's, maybe something gets handed to us, that promotion, or all of a sudden there's that relationship, that person that it's behind you in line. And it's sometimes I, I was just curious if it ever felt like you weren't present when you went from zero to one?
[00:05:08] Kim: Oh, then yes, because I think that we start personally, I think we start at zero every day we get up. Every day gives us a new opportunity to take that new step. But it's very often unintentional steps that we take. And we talked about this before, right? Is all the unintentional steps we take every day and all the unintentional choices we make every day? But that intentional like, "Oh, this is where I want to put my feet on the path." Not just wandering and ending up on the path. That happens to us every day because of these unintentional choices.
[00:05:40] Kim: Yeah. I think I take that resounding “No!" back too. In case I misunderstood the question, I thought you were asking something else, but yeah, I think that intentionality is, I think that's rare, at that when we recognize we take that first step. And I think for me, a lot of it comes from habit, how I'm used to living. This is how everybody lives, right? This is what we do. and it's just, it's personal, but it's also a societal habit. Yeah. And I think that that keeps us going on this one trajectory that making that intentional zero to one step is not as frequent.
[00:06:20] Nikki: And even like changing that zero to one step, like you said, Kim, every day is a chance to start at zero.
[00:06:27] Nikki: And so the difference between doing that step out of habit, rolling over, grabbing your phone and scrolling social media or saying today, I'm going to meditate you have to consciously choose something different if you want something different or if you are just used to saying yes to everything and everyone, and as opposed to is this really something I want to do and having that pause in there.
[00:06:50] Kim: Yeah.
[00:06:50] Sara: Yeah. I think it's about choices and we forget that we have a choice. That's something I've thought about that threads through this whole season is sometimes you just forget I do have a choice. Everything that has led me to this moment now is decision I've made or choice or trail of choices I've made.
[00:07:07] Sara: Some of them were intentional. Some of them were completely unintentional. And that's one of the things I've just really learned through this entire season is remembering when I wake up, I can choose to meditate or scroll through social media. Or I am proof you can do both every morning!
[00:07:27] Nikki: Sara's proof of a lot of things.
[00:07:28] Kim: Yes, she is. Well, and there's someone wiser than me that I believe had shared with us that we are always in choice.
[00:07:37] Nikki: Yes, it's just, is it a conscious choice or habitual, unconscious choice and recognizing that, even recognizing that, "Oh, I get to be in choice," or "How am I in choice?" That's almost the in-between of step zero and one is saying, "I get to be in choice here." So am I going to put my foot on this path or this rock as I'm crossing the river or this one?
[00:08:03] Laura: I think that was one of my favorite things that we discussed that came up in this season was that even making the decision, the choice to stay in place is also a choice and therefore still movement. It's still a conscious decision that we've made, not just, "Oh my gosh, I'm stuck," and not recognizing that we're stuck.
[00:08:25] Nikki: And then that's even scary too, or terrifying to imagine a different way of doing things. I know Kim and I had talked about this, even imagining for some people, a new way of doing things.
[00:08:39] Kim: Oh yeah. When I talk about and imagining and visioning it terrifies people. They're, "I can't even think about that because if I think about that, then it reminds me of what I'm not doing and where I am and how I am." And that for me, that hurts my heart. Because I want everybody to imagine their life, and, and I would hazard a guess that we all want everybody to have that opportunity to envision the life and have an opportunity to live the life that they are meant to live here on earth.
[00:09:12] Laura: I read this article, talking something about this, right? When you make the decision. When you actually make that decision to take that first step. And the example that was given was if I'm trying to decide if I want to be a doctor or if I want to be a lumberjack. And while I'm sitting in that indecision, there's a lot of angst there. There's a lot of not knowing, but once I actually make that call and actually start down that path, then things start lining up.
[00:09:41] Laura: And so, I think that sometimes the best thing you can do is actually make the decision. It actually starts the path. So, let's say I decide to be a lumberjack, then I'm no longer looking at medical school. I am now focusing on where do I learn how to do this? And yeah. You know, what part of the country do I need to be in? And how do I get those skills I need?
[00:10:01] Laura: And then I am on a path instead of sitting in that place of indecision. Now it doesn't mean we can't course correct. And let's say I try lumberjacking for a year, and I hate it. I'm sure there's med school still out there. It's all just an experiment, right?
[00:10:14] Nikki: I have to say, I love Laura Lively, the lumberjack.
[00:10:17] Kim: Yeah, I do too.
[00:10:17] Nikki: For the alliteration. I'm so glad that was the one you picked: doctor and lumberjack. That just made me so happy.
[00:10:25] Sara: I was wondering what the third choice was. Cause I'm like, I don't want to be either of those.
[00:10:30] Kim: I just have the song. I'm a lumberjack and I don't care.
[00:10:33] Nikki: But also, like you said, it's when you become solid in a decision, it doesn't mean it is the last and ultimate choice you will always make for the rest of your life. But the world almost opens up for you when you step into the energy of that choice.
[00:10:49] Kim: Oh my God, yes.
[00:10:50] Nikki: The whole world begins to support you as you are taking steps in the direction. It's not just about imagining and sitting in your room and waiting for the, I don't know the lumberjack school to knock on your door and say," Hey, we want you. Your choice is made." It's doing the research. It's going out and getting your boots on the ground. But then all of a sudden guideposts start popping up next to you. And you meet people who introduce you to the Lumberjack Association. And who invite you to, "Hey, come and shadow me for a day. So you can see what it's like." So, you get to go into that curiosity space that you have said yes to. And the whatever you said no to closes the door for now, but it's, and sometimes the door disappears because it really isn't something for you. But like you said, in a year, down the road, if you're like a lumberjacking is not my jam, then there are other doors.
[00:11:44] Kim: And you have the boots, as you just mentioned.
[00:11:47] Nikki: And the cute shirts and the whole situation.
[00:11:50] Sara: To know that the Lumberjack World Championships are in July 2021.
[00:11:54] Kim: There we go.
[00:11:55] Sara: You're welcome.
[00:11:56] Nikki: Where attention goes, energy flows.
[00:11:57] Laura: That's beautiful.
[00:11:58] Kim: The fascinating thing about when you put your attention somewhere, you have the opportunity to start seeing things differently. When you buy a green car, all of a sudden you notice all the green cars
[00:12:11] Nikki: Don't think about elephants.
[00:12:13] Laura: Yeah, exactly.
[00:12:15] Kim: And suddenly one will end up in your living room.
[00:12:17] Nikki: Yeah. Or you'll see it on the billboard that happens to me all the time.
[00:12:22] Louise: Yeah. And I, I think, that when we look at this imagination and this idea of dreaming and trying to discover what is possible, sometimes we get caught up in, "Oh, that's just a pipe dream, but that's not really something I could do, or that's not really made for me." I'm that's not where I can go.
[00:12:45] Nikki: Or that's too easy. I can't do it.
[00:12:47] Louise: It's too easy. Yeah.
[00:12:49] Laura: Or it's too hard.
[00:12:51] Louise: And I really love there's a quote out there somewhere. I don't know who said it, but it's something along the lines of, maybe I said it, maybe Einstein said it or maybe it's just me. Maybe I'm just making this up. But this idea that to use your imagination is not necessarily a place to go where we escape reality. But really, it's a place to see what is possible to start being creative in how we think about what we do and who we are and how we show up in our lives and dream about possibility.
[00:13:23] Louise: We get stuck in this reality. "I don't have the skills. I don't have the personality. I'm, I'm not this, or I'm less than that." And stepping into what is possible allows you to take those parts to uncover what is really going on inside and connecting that to the outside world.
[00:13:47] Kim: When you start to visualize, when you start to imagine, when you start to dream is that you have this opportunity to think of all of the alternatives. And even if you land on something like becoming a lumberjack that may not actually be where you end up. You may start in lumberjacking school and end up being a park ranger because you've been introduced to something else along the way. It just opens up your world so much wider than it is which just creates so many amazing possibilities.
[00:14:18] Nikki: Perhaps the most times the word lumberjack has been used outside of a lumberjack, focused podcast.
[00:14:25] Kim: This episode brought to you by The Lumberjack Association.
[00:14:29] Louise: Can they sponsor us?
[00:14:32] Nikki: But I also love what you said, Louise, about your, you tell yourself these things and especially with your NLP background, the power of words, like "this is hard" versus "this is not easy." How do those words feel different to you? So, if you're telling yourself "I can't do this," you're going to believe those words. But that also means you have the power to use different words when you talk to yourself.
[00:14:57] Louise: Yeah, absolutely. Again, being in choice, seeing, and hearing how we talk to ourselves is part of that recognition of being intentional and how do we hold ourselves back? Just by the way we speak to ourselves. Just clearly, by the words that we use, even the words we use in conversation with others and how do we step out of that, recognizing the language, the power of language around how we communicate with ourselves? It can keep us very small.
[00:15:34] Louise: Those words we learn, come from our upbringing, comes from our past. We've heard those things said to us, or around us, and we incorporate them into our lives. I hear a lot of times this power of positivity and this idea that if I only just talk positive about something, then my life is gonna turn around and we're going to all be great.
[00:15:58] Louise: And there's a tiny bit of truth to what doors words and language open for us. And I'm not saying you go around thinking that the world is a sunshiny place when we've got all kinds of chaos and disruption and injustice in the world. I'm not saying that we turn a blind eye to that, but when we start talking about who we are and how we want to show up in the world in a way that is integrous to who we are, really are, then that starts the step, right? That's all the start of that intentional choice.
[00:16:41] Sara: Everything you just said made me think of the word hope. It made me think of focusing on what can amongst some of the things that are difficult. I think about the people in the in the past who have changed the world, it's because they saw this vision. They, you talked about like a pipe dream earlier. And I think that's the big thing is you have to have this vision of where you want to go and where you can take your life before you can start taking steps towards it. And once it becomes so clear, I think it's easier. You start realizing, "Oh, this is what I want."
[00:17:12] Sara: And that's when, if you're thinking about that green car and all you're thinking about is I can't wait to buy a green car. You're going to make choices that are going to get you to working towards getting that green car. And that's just what you made me think of is yeah, there's injustice. There's all sorts of things going on in this world that are difficult. And the way to change it is to think about what is possible.
[00:17:31] Kim: And that first step is hope very often, right? In that instance, that first step is just is it leaning into hope, leaning into changing your mindset slightly, right? It doesn't make everything else go away, but it makes the way that you respond to it different.
[00:17:50] Sara: Yeah, absolutely.
[00:17:51] Laura: I wanted to speak back to what Louise just said about things we've heard in childhood. And I think it rolls into where do we go in the future. We have these tapes or parts of us that have beliefs that we may not even realize we have. I recently purchased a new lipstick because I'm doing a lot of video.
[00:18:12] Laura: And it's darker than I normally wear. And I thought, "You can't wear dark lipstick." And so, then I thought, "Why, tell me why you can't wear dark lipstick?" And so it was interesting just to recognize that's a belief that I had that I cannot wear dark lipstick. Where did that come from? I don't know. Did I hear it somewhere when I was a child? And so I can't start making changes until I, I'm willing to take a step back and start to examine, "Where did I pick up these beliefs?" And it's freeing because what it occurred to me, is “hell I can wear any lipstick I want.”
[00:18:47] Nikki: And push back a little bit, you might not ever have an answer to where did that come from? But it also leads to the question. Do I have to believe that?
[00:18:55] Laura: Exactly. I don't know that I care where it came from, but the point is now I have this, it was an unconscious thought that I had, and now I can make the decision to, does that belief serve me?
[00:19:06] Nikki: Yeah. And recognizing that thought like, “oh, I can't wear red lipstick” and just put, okay. I guess I can't and moving through it instead of, I can't wear red lipstick,
[00:19:14] Laura: By the way, you're the reason that I decided – Nikki has this amazing red lipstick. And I thought, why can't I wear dark lipstick? So, thanks Nikki for helping me identify a belief and then question it so that I could move forward and do something I've never done in my entire 54 years.
[00:19:31] Sara: It's interesting, you talked about why can't I wear dark lipstick and I have a story when I was a child. I was the little athlete and I wanted to wear athletic clothes and I never wanted to wear my hair down or wear lipstick. And when you started talking about lipstick, it made me think about how my mom used to always say, "Why aren't you wearing lipstick?"
[00:19:47] Sara: And so, I rebelled and would refuse to ever wear lipstick. And now, like if I ever wear it, I'm like, Oh my mom's smiling. I'm not going to put that on. So, I know where my lipstick story comes from.
[00:19:58] Nikki: Yeah, you do.
[00:19:59] Sara: But it's being told you're not good enough if you don't do this and being able to know what the story is and where it's coming from, you can change the narrative. And for me, there's certain things I am good enough, and I think that's really important to change the words and the narrative. So, I love the lipstick.
[00:20:14] Laura: I also love that, what's good for, you know what works for me, doesn't have to work for you, Sara. You don't want the lipstick. You don't need the lipstick. There was a part of me that would love to wear dark lipstick, but I've never had the guts to do that. So I love the same, the same little point, it's okay if I want it and okay if you don't.
[00:20:35] Louise: As we're talking here over the last few minutes, the thing that came up for me, the word that came up for me, that I think is the doorway into noticing maybe where your stories come from, or maybe what your stories are the words, "I can't." And when we start to hear those words repeated back to us, I think it's time to take a pause and to say, "Why not?" And maybe it's more of, I don't want to, cause I don't want to do that.
[00:21:07] Nikki: And that's fine.
[00:21:08] Louise: And that's fine. But it's not, "I can't." "I don't wanna," is way different than "I can't."
[00:21:15] Kim: Well, "I don't want to," is a choice, and "I can't" is giving up any control that you have and giving that elsewhere.
[00:21:24] Sara: Can't lives on won't street. So, we say.
[00:21:28] Kim: Can't, can't lives on won't street?
[00:21:31] Sara: Yeah, so is it that you can't, or that you won't? And that's what I've looked at is, as someone says, "I can't." Maybe it's because you're not, you won't do it. You won't figure out how to do it. You just succumb to, "I can't."
[00:21:42] Nikki: And it's how "I can't" hits your brain too, because your brain believes what you say, what you tell it. And so, if you say, "Oh, I can't do that." Your brain's, "Yeah, you can't." And "I won't do that, or I choose not to, or I don't want to do that," is. "Okay. Yeah, we don't want to do that. What else can we do?" And so, to even change it to a question and say, "Do I want to do that? Is that something I'm excited about?" Let's your brain answer the question instead of telling it, this is how it is.
[00:22:15] Nikki: And so like when Laura said, "Why can't I wear dark lipstick?" Then your brain starts trying to answer that question. "Why can't I?" I don't want to, or, you know what? I was told that it was wrong. Or, and that's for my curious brain, that is what opens things up, asking those questions. It's, it's one of the gifts of coaching as well.
[00:22:35] Nikki: And being in community is having people say, "Why can't you, or why won't you?" What Sara just said, she has somebody on her team who said, "I can't do that." I fully can see you saying, "Can't lives on won't street" and having them talk about it.
[00:22:52] Kim: When we're talking about this, it's asking ourselves, "What is it that I actually really want?"
[00:22:57] Nikki: And that can be a hard question to answer if you haven't done that before.
[00:23:01] Kim: It can be incredibly difficult. And I feel like that's where that's where so many people start. I know I've been there before, where I, I can't tell you what I really want. And there I go using that word, but because I haven't taken, to circle back, I haven't taken that initial step to find the intentionality of asking myself that question, "What is it that I really want?" Because once I figure out, at least in this moment, what I really want, then I have the decision that I can make. "Do I go to a lumberjack school? Do I buy the dark lipstick? Do I buy the boots?" I get to make those choices.
[00:23:37] Sara: And a lot of us were brought up not being able to have the choice to choose what you want. You were just told what to do and what a great space to be in where you're like, wait, I have choices. I don't have to go down that path or I don't have to go to be a Ph.D because my parents think I should, I get to choose. And I think that's a place of freedom.
[00:23:56] Kim: It's a huge place of freedom.
[00:23:59] Nikki: It is. But it feels like a trap at first, if you haven't ever done that, because -
[00:24:04] Kim: I felt that trap. I felt it close. Yeah.
[00:24:08] Nikki: Yeah. It was like a trap because, for me, I've always just followed the flow. Okay. Here, let's go there. This feels good. Let's do this. And I had a moment when I was in the RV with my dog, traveling, living this dream because I love being out and exploring and meeting people. And I didn't feel cut off from the flow, but I almost felt it was, "Okay, you choose." And I was like, "What?" I wasn't feeling pulled in any direction. I wasn't feeling like that openness in a specific way. It was, everything was open and I had a breakdown. Thankfully, I was in a campground in a beautiful place for a few days, but I was trying to figure out what was next. And I was sobbing, and I have the sweetest dog who just comes and leans against me because he's a giant boy. And he said, "I'm here. What do you need?"
[00:25:00] Nikki: But I was sobbing. I would look at the map. I would point at something and say, "Nope, that's not it." And I had to learn how to figure out what I wanted, where I wanted to go, and what I wanted to do. And it felt so disempowering at first because I had no idea how to do that.
[00:25:21] Kim: Good for you for doing it.
[00:25:23] Nikki: It was that or live in the bottom of the canyon in the RV, which wouldn't be so bad, but I didn't get internet. So it would have been hard.
[00:25:29] Kim: And we would have been sad cause we wouldn't have gotten to meet you. But the, I mean that in all genuineness. Because it is not something most of us take an opportunity to do, which is to say, "Okay, I actually have every choice imaginable in front of me. Holy shit. What do I do?" Because that is thoroughly overwhelming.
[00:25:54] Nikki: Yeah. If you can do everything, if you can do anything, that means that you have to weed through everything to make your choice.
[00:26:03] Kim: And so how did you, then you said you had this breakdown and you sat and you sobbed and you had wonderful Bentley by your side. What did you do to finally hear that voice that helped you figure out that next step?
[00:26:17] Nikki: I looked at where I was, which was in Palo Duro Canyon, which is the second-largest Canyon in the US if anybody's wondering. It's amazing and went for hikes, got out in nature, but really looked around at where I was right then at that moment and said, "What do I like about this? What is interesting me here?" And it was being in a Canyon. It was being away from so much, but near so much more. And it just felt good there. And in talking to the park ranger, I learned that the bottom of that Canyon was the top of another Canyon in another state park. And I was like, I love this here.
[00:26:57] Nikki: It intrigued me to go to a different area. Okay, that's our next step. And then there was another park along that whole Canyon system. So I just traveled along there at first. And choices I made from there were what feels good here and now? Do I want to experience a different feeling, or do I want to still work within this feeling?
[00:27:20] Nikki: And sometimes it was different. We went to three different sand dunes and Bentley had the time of his life. We went to the mountains; we went to California and saw the trees. We did all of these different things. And I did end up going back to the Canyon and staying there towards the end of the trip. We also went to a state park where we got to mine diamonds.
[00:27:39] Nikki: And so, it was really about what feels good? Is it something I want to keep experiencing? Or am I ready to change that experience?
[00:27:46] Kim: You were in that place of "Holy shit, I have all of these options in front of me. This is huge. This is overwhelming." And then you narrowed it down to that question of, "But what is it that's happening right now that I really love?" And that takes me back to the episode where Louise was talking about the index cards. Of "What do I love about what I'm doing?" And "What is making me cry?" And even though you had everything in front of you, you had an opportunity to start narrowing that down, and then you could ask that meaningful question of "What is it that I really want.?" And you can take that next step.
[00:28:23] Nikki: Even being able to say, do I want more of this or am I ready for something else?
[00:28:27] Kim: Yeah.
[00:28:28] Nikki: It doesn't have to be, you don't have to be in an awful situation to want to change. You can decide, yeah, I love this. And there's this other thing too.
[00:28:38] Kim: I want to experience something more or different.
[00:28:41] Nikki: Yeah.
[00:28:42] Kim: Yeah. Absolutely
[00:28:42] Nikki: I'm ready to grow in a new way.
[00:28:44] Kim: Yeah. I love that. I love that you just tapped into the, it doesn't have to be bad to want to change.
[00:28:51] Louise: Yeah, I think like that happens so many places in our lives where we're just bumping along and going down that road in the RV and it's is it bad? No. Is it good? No.
[00:29:06] Kim: Yeah, but the question is -
[00:29:08] Nikki: Are there straight-line winds? Yes, sometimes.
[00:29:11] Kim: And the question is, did you meet any lumberjacks?
[00:29:14] Nikki: No. And I also didn't wear lipstick.
[00:29:16] Kim: There we have it.
[00:29:17] Nikki: This is our lumberjack and lipstick episode. And both I have the lipstick, but I never wore it.
[00:29:22] Kim: This episode brought to you by the letter "L."
[00:29:26] Laura: Exactly, exactly.
[00:29:27] Nikki: Absolutely. Which Laura Lively is very happy about. Laura Lively's loving. I'm going to say that.
[00:29:37] Nikki: One thing that I would love to talk about as well is how has coming out of the echo chamber of your mind, of these thoughts that you just have out of habit. How has that changed because of coaching because of community, because of having other people who you trust, speak different words to you, or even reflect your words to you?
[00:30:02] Sara: I have created a sense of community in the last nine months that I haven't really had before. I have people in my life that are cheering me on. And telling me that I am good enough and getting excited about the things that I want I do in this world. And. But it's okay to ask other people for help and it's okay to let other people support you. I think that's been a big shift for me.
[00:30:28] Louise: I think for myself over this last while. And I would have to say it's been a couple of years when I started on my own journey of finding work that fits, finding something that feels right, really me. Finding a way for my insides and who I am on the inside to show up in what I do in the world.
[00:30:54] Louise: And I think that outside of just my career journey, it's really taught me that's how I want to show up in my whole life. And I don't want to keep everything on the inside. I'm an extremely private person and I have lots of stuff going on in my head, going on inside. And I never knew the power of sharing that with a community of people who love and support me and do not judge those pieces of me, those parts of me that want to come out. And that's really, for me been a huge place of growth, not just through my career journey and into coaching, but also, I think I've said it before like it just oozes into every corner of my life and fills it up in such a beautiful way
[00:32:01] Sara: The world needs more Louise Neil. So thank you for -
[00:32:03] Kim: I was going to say the same thing.
[00:32:05] Nikki: Absolutely.
[00:32:06] Kim: Yeah.
[00:32:06] Louise: I think one of the things that used to go through my mind, some of that self-talk that I used to have was what's the point? What is the purpose of me speaking out into the world? What am I looking for? What is the return on investment?
[00:32:28] Louise: And I've really come to appreciate and love about myself, is that sometimes the purpose or the point is just to say it out loud.
[00:32:42] Kim: Louise, I am so appreciative that you have expanded your voice and have allowed us to be a part of that. And I feel like it is such a beautiful example of what I feel and what I think so many other people feel when we get to step outside of the echo chamber of our own minds and of the kind of the regurgitation within our own brains of our own thoughts and what it is that we want to change or that we do, we change.
[00:33:14] Kim: And just all of the stuff that happens internally for us and to allow ourselves that space to grow because we're sharing ourselves outside of ourselves. And for me, that's what has felt so amazing is to have that opportunity to not just roll, roll everything around in my brain and do it all on my own, but to lean in and to grow more. Because to have that mirror held up to me to have somebody just ask a question and it may feel or sound like a confrontational question. It may sound and feel scary at first, but I've learned to not take it that way. I've learned to say, "Ooh, this is a moment of growth" that I can really look at something in a way that I haven't before.
[00:34:03] Laura: Hearing somebody repeat back to me what I've said that being able to mirror that back to me, allows me to hear it from somebody else's voice.
[00:34:11] Laura: And then the flip side is I also see that with my own clients, that me mirroring back what they say can have them have this aha moment. So I do find there's huge value in just getting, like you said, getting it out of my own head. And sometimes even as I'm saying it, I can have the aha. I'm like, Oh, I see the problem.
[00:34:34] Laura: So something about, maybe it is the energetic flow of getting it up and out of my body and into, just into a larger space that can be really helpful to help me get out of a stuck place or to get out of the echo chamber of my own mind.
[00:34:47] Nikki: Yeah. And for me having a space to say "things aren't okay" to come to and say, I'm having a really bad day. And in the past, in my head, that would have been a weakness because I can do this. I'm strong. I got this. I can do everything all by myself and I can't be weak. Nobody can know that I'm weak. Nobody can know that I can't do everything by myself. But I learned the real power move is to say, "Hey, I need support."
[00:35:22] Nikki: And to trust that will be met with people's true. Yes. And true. No, and it has nothing to do with, do they love me or not love me or does the no mean a rejection of my entire person when really, you know what, they don't have time. They have other commitments and that's good because of I've learned if somebody trusts you with their true no, that's actually more loving than saying yes because you feel obligated.
[00:35:50] Kim: I just want to take it back to what you said at the beginning, which is what I'm hearing from all of us is that we don't feel other.
[00:35:57] Nikki: Yes.
[00:35:57] Sara: Amen.
[00:35:59] Nikki: [garbled]. Okay. It is now time for the Lightning Round. Yeah. Right. First one, the best part of moving your body?
[00:36:11] Kim: Energy flow.
[00:36:12] Laura: When it's done.
[00:36:15] Sara: The feeling of endorphins and energy and awesomeness for the rest of the day.
[00:36:22] Louise: I feel accomplished. Hey, look what I just did!
[00:36:27] Nikki: For me, it's afterward, too. Okay. I did that now I can not be thinking about it the rest of the day. The best part of doing work that lights you up?
[00:36:35] Sara: Knowing that you have an effect on other people and seeing the world change because you followed your dream.
[00:36:42] Nikki: Boom.
[00:36:43] Laura: What she said.
[00:36:44] Kim: Yeah. That pretty much summed it up.
[00:36:46] Laura: That was a -
[00:36:47] Sara: Mic drop.
[00:36:48] Louise: When you use that word "lights you up," it's absolutely what it feels like from the inside out. Whatever, however, you could describe it, it's absolutely light.
[00:37:02] Kim: You got your sparkle back.
[00:37:04] Nikki: That's right. And for me, it's not just that it's the work that is lit up. It trickles over into everywhere.
[00:37:11] Kim: Yeah.
[00:37:13] Nikki: So, the best part of parts work?
[00:37:15] Kim: Everything.
[00:37:16] Laura: All the parts.
[00:37:18] Sara: The fact that I have seven different parts that talk to each other, and then I felt calm. So thank you, Laura Lively.
[00:37:24] Louise: Yeah, all the parts. It's all part of it.
[00:37:27] Nikki: For me. It's that I get to look at things without feeling like I am just that.
[00:37:34] Laura: Spaciousness.
[00:37:35] Kim: Yup.
[00:37:36] Nikki: Yup. The best part of integrating your whole life?
[00:37:41] Sara: Oh my God, I almost said balance and then I realized "balance is bullshit."
[00:37:48] Kim: Yep. There you go.
[00:37:51] Nikki: Are you looking for harmony? Is that the word you want?
[00:37:53] Sara: Yes. I meant to say harmony.
[00:37:57] Louise: Flow.
[00:37:58] Kim: Being present.
[00:38:00] Laura: I'm sorry. I'm stuck on balance is bullshit.
[00:38:02] Kim: That's awesome.
[00:38:04] Nikki: You're stuck there, word-wise? Or are you stuck there for yourself or your answer?
[00:38:08] Laura: Yeah, I'm stuck. Just consider it stuck. I actually, excuse me, it's not stuck. I'm in a pause.
[00:38:13] Louise: There you go.
[00:38:13] Nikki: Beautiful. You're reflecting. I love it. For me, it's the same as the work that lights you up, it's everywhere in your life and it gives you that space. And so my personal favorite question, the best part of breathwork?
[00:38:25] Kim: Morning Breath.
[00:38:30] Sara: Morning Breath.
[00:38:31] Nikki: Was that everybody? Sorry.
[00:38:33] Louise: I think breathwork is the door to the present.
[00:38:38] Sara: Yeah, I was just gonna say you can always access your breath no matter where you are and if you're stressed, breathwork can just bring you back to the moment. So, I agree with that.
[00:38:49] Kim: Yeah. Centering
[00:38:50] Nikki: Well, and for me, it's, all of what you all just said, but I love to me, it's like the perfect combination of science and woo-woo. How it engages your parasympathetic system, but there's, so that kind of woo energetic aspect to it as well.
[00:39:04] Nikki: Thank you so much for joining us for this, our final episode in season one of The Best Parts.
[00:39:13] Sara: I am your father.
[00:39:14] Kim: What did I miss?
[00:39:17] Nikki: It seems like this is gold.
[00:39:18] Sara: I'm excited.
[00:39:19] Kim: Oh, now are we all taking our tops off? No.
[00:39:22] Sara: I'm not wearing a bra.
[00:39:24] Nikki: We can have The Best Parts After Dark.
[00:39:28] Louise: And, and sometimes the kids are driving the bus.
[00:39:31] Laura: I want a cookie. I want a cookie.
[00:39:33] Sara: I feel easy.
[00:39:34] Kim: Good. Easy peasy, lemon queasy?
[00:39:36] Nikki: Nowadays.
[00:39:37] Laura: Hearkening.
[00:39:38] Louise: What about a hanky?
[00:39:39] Nikki: I’m going to say whippersnapper and make it a trifecta.
[00:39:42] Laura: Sara!
[00:39:43] All: it's not -
[00:39:46] Sara: Sorry. There was too much silence. Sorry.
[00:39:49] Nikki: I love what you said that
[00:39:50] Laura: I also love that
[00:39:52] Kim: I love this idea of
[00:39:53] All: [00:39:53] um, uh, um, uh,
[00:39:55] um,
[00:39:56] um, Uh, um, um
[00:39:59] um, um
[00:40:01] um,
[00:40:02] um, um,
[00:40:04] um
[00:40:04] mmm. So,
[00:40:05] so, so yeah. Um, well, well, okay. Um,
[00:40:09] well, you know,
[00:40:10] I mean like like, like, like, like, like, like,
[00:40:13] like, like, like,
[00:40:19] okay, like, okay. You're
[00:40:20] like, right, right,
[00:40:23] right, right, right,
[00:40:24] right. Right, right, right, right,
[00:40:28] right.
[00:40:29] Kind of, kind of, kind of, kind of, kind of, kind of, kind of,
[00:40:32] you know, you know,
[00:40:34] you know, you know, you know,
[00:40:35] you know, you know, you know, um,
[00:40:38] you know, you know, uh,
[00:40:39] you know, you know, like, Hey, you know what
[00:40:41] I mean? So, I mean, you
[00:40:42] know, um, uh, right.
[00:40:43] Laura: What was the question?
[00:40:47] Nikki: We're glad you pulled up a chair and joined us on this journey. As we said in our First Episode, we hope you're inspired to try new things, make new connections and be a little more present with all the parts of you. We are so beyond grateful that you're here, but we're not done yet. Nope. Season Two is just one month away.
[00:41:05] Nikki: And just like this first season, there will be some laughs, some introspection and a few surprises along the way. Join us as we continue the conversation and welcome to the table some additional voices we hope will inspire and entertain you. We're excited to get started and even more excited to share it with you. In the meantime, be sure to keep your eye on Instagram and Facebook as there promises to be a surprise or two there over the next month.
[00:41:30] Nikki: Join in on the fun by connecting with us on our social media accounts or through our individual websites. You can find all of that information in this week's show notes. Bye for now,
[00:41:41] Kim: Thanks for joining us today for another episode of The Best Parts Podcast. If you like what you heard today, we would love it if you would share this podcast on social media or with anyone else you think would enjoy it. After all, sharing is caring and be sure to leave a rating or review on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to podcasts, as it helps others find us. If you'd like to connect with us, you can find us on Instagram @thebestpartspodcast or head over to our website at thebestparts.Podbean.com. Thanks for listening. And until next time, remember that all of the parts are the best parts.
Tuesday Sep 01, 2020
Tuesday Sep 01, 2020
Join us as we get to know our fabulous co-host, Nikki Baker Wulf in Episode 6 of Season 1. Nikki shares how she believes learning to live in the now begins by using our breath. She talks us through her own eclectic career history, truly leading by example, on how to follow the beat of your own drum. She is a certified yogi and a life coach who wants to “Help the helpers.”
Nikki can be found at:
https://www.nikkibakerwulf.com/
----------------------------
BestParts Podcast - Ep 6 - Nikki Baker Wulf - In the Now
[00:00:00] Nikki: You can be a work in progress and a masterpiece at the same time.
[00:00:04] Louise: [Let me find the right answer. It's gotta be out there.
[00:00:07] Sara: I was such a dork when I was younger.
[00:00:10 ] Laura: You just butchered it.
[00:00:12] Kim: It's almost Nancy. Drew- ish. Yay!!
[00:00:19] Laura: Hi, I'm Laura.
[00:00:21] Sara: Hi, I'm Sara
[00:00:22] Kim: And I'm Kim.
[00:00:23] Nikki: This is Nikki.
[00:00:24] Louise: And I'm Louise.
[00:00:26] Kim: Hi, and welcome to The Best Parts Podcast, where we invite you to pull up a chair and think about your best parts, which are all your parts.
[00:00:36] Laura: Welcome everybody. I am so excited to be spotlighting our very own Nikki Baker Wulf on The Best Parts Podcast. Pull up a chair, grab a cup of coffee, and let's do this thing.
[00:00:45] Laura: So, I want to tell you a little bit about Nikki. As a coach, Nikki recognizes that there is not a one size fits all approach to self-inquiry. She helps her clients uncover their special sauce with what does and does not work for them. Her purpose in life is to, is support people who have made the decision to create action from new awareness.
[00:01:03] Laura: Nikki is a self-proscribed, loudly exuberant, ferociously loving, and radically hopeful individual, that overuses adjectives. Now, wait a minute! She said that not me.
[00:01:14] Nikki: I totally did. And I really overuse adjectives. So, I own that.
[00:01:17] Laura: Yeah. Well, and I, I can attest to the ferociously loving individual. She has such a big heart. Nikki is a Minnesotan. And as an ex Minnesotan, I loved her as soon as I met her. She is a very important part of our Best Parts team. And you've already heard her moderate, a couple of our episodes, and we're really excited to focus on her today so we can get to know her better. Welcome to The Best Parts, Nikki.
[00:01:40] Nikki: Thank you.
[00:01:42] Laura: So Nikki, you were one of the first people I met in California in January 2020, and I was just drawn to you immediately. And like I said, I'm an ex Minnesotan. I lived in Minnesota for 20 years until I couldn't take the winters any longer. And it was just a bonus for me that you were from Minnesota. I still have strong ties there. And once this pandemic is over, be forewarned, I will be visiting multiple times a year.
[00:02:04] Nikki: I have space for you. And it's funny because Minnesota people recognize Minnesota people. Even if you don't know that you do. I was in the Rome train station and I see a guy in a Vikings Jersey, and I went "Minnesota!"
[00:02:16] Nikki: He's like, “Yeah, Vikings!!" So, we just, we know who we are, even from across the room.
[00:02:22] Laura: I did the same thing when I was in Milan last year, I, there was a Minnesotan and I knew a Minnesotan when I saw him.
[00:02:28] Nikki: Yeah. Something about us.
[00:02:30] Laura: So Nikki, I will say we have absolutely saved the best for last, when we scheduled you to be the last one of us host to be in the Hot Seat, Nikki and I had the opportunity to connect prior to this interview and I found out some, several juicy things that I really wanted to dive into.
[00:02:45] Nikki: Awesome.
[00:02:45] Laura: So one of the things you mentioned when we can connected was that you had done a lot of self-work, and I was really curious about what put you onto that path of self-discovery?
[00:02:54] Nikki: My whole life I really came from a place of feeling "other than" and wrong. I didn't quite fit. Something just was a little bit out of sync or out of resonance with me and the rest of the world.
[00:03:08] Nikki: And because of that, I got really curious about "the right way to be in the world." So trying to figure out how to exist in the "right way" in the world really started this, not even an official way, but just as a coping mechanism to try to fit in which, you know, when you're young that's what's, that's what you do.
[00:03:32] Nikki: "How do I fit in? Why don't people want to hang out with me? How do I make friends? How can I be like everybody else so everybody else accepts me?" And that always felt so wrong to me to be doing. So, even as I felt wrong, trying to fit in, made me feel more wrong. And so, I really got curious about myself. And there's a big part of me that always is just, I'm going to march to the beat of my own drum. I'm going to do what I want to do. I dealt with a lot of rejection in that as well. So, there are some wounds from that, but I also have a strong drive just to do what I want to do, and how I want to do it and move forward.
[00:04:12] Laura: I love that. Anybody else here felt othered or wrong or like they didn't fit in.
[00:04:18] Kim: Yeah.
[00:04:19] Sara: Yeah.
[00:04:19] Nikki: What, it wasn't just me? What?
[00:04:23] Laura: I'm sorry, it wasn't just, I mean, well, I don't know. Does that make you feel better? It always made me feel better to realize I wasn't the only one. So yeah, you weren't the only one?
[00:04:32] Nikki: Well, I -
[00:04:32] Sara: I was such a dork when I was younger, so yeah.
[00:04:35] Kim: You still are.
[00:04:36] Sara: Thank you so much, Kim. I love you too.
[00:04:40] Nikki: That's how we found each other.
[00:04:41] Kim: Well exactly. It takes one to know one.
[00:04:44] Sara: Absolutely.
[00:04:46] Kim: I'm sorry. I was the only girl that played D and D. That was --
[00:04:50] Nikki: Back in the day. Yeah.
[00:04:51] Kim: I was the only girl.
[00:04:53] Sara: And now that's cool. So, look at you, you were like --
[00:04:56] Laura: A trendsetter.
[00:04:58] Kim: Yeah, but then I was, well, then, you know, the, all the boys were like, "Oh yeah, come play. We're good. Come with us. Come hang out."
[00:05:07] Nikki: It's funny because I would have loved to know that back then, but who, you know, when you're a kid who talks about that, right. Like, yeah. I feel weird too. I, you know, I wish nowadays. Oh my gosh, I just sounded so old when I said that nowadays, you know, these things are discussed, but back then it was just, you kind of shrunk into a corner and didn't talk about it.
[00:05:29] Laura: I remember when I first started with clients, I was shocked to realize that that everybody feels like they didn't fit in. And I was like, hold on where - like you, I was like, where were all these cool kids in high school? They had to feel like they fit in. But what I really found is that nobody felt like they fit in. Everybody felt like the odd man out.
[00:05:48] Nikki: Well, that was the perception, right? You had the cool kids in school, like, Oh, they all get each other. They're all the same. They all are so confident, strutting down the hallways with, you know, they're tight rolled jeans and Keds with no socks.
[00:06:02] Kim: You're aging yourself now.
[00:06:05] Nikki: Well, it's, you know, I can do that. It's all right. I already aged myself. I think, you know, I'm just going to say whippersnapper and make it a trifecta.
[00:06:12] Kim: At least it’s not a hankie.
[00:06:14] Laura: At least it’s not a hankie.
[00:06:16] Louise: When we look back, we see this part of us that didn't fit in when we were younger. But I think it happens all of the time. It happens over and over and over again. I think for myself, there were times where I was like," Yeah, I totally got this. " And then all of a sudden it's like, "Nope, I sure don't." And it feels your world starts to feel awfully small when you don't feel like you belong anymore.
[00:06:42] Kim: Yeah, totally.
[00:06:44] Laura: I was thinking, Louise, when you said that and also kind of hearkening hearkening, there you go. Speaking of old terms, hearkening.
[00:06:51] Nikki: That's a good one.
[00:06:51] Laura: Hearkening back to what Nikki said, there's wounding that occurs when we're younger. And I think as we start passive self-exploration and self-discovery, there's an opportunity to heal those wounds. And so, Nikki, you had mentioned that you've done all sorts of things and you've been doing a lot of self-discovery. Can you share a little bit about some of the things you have done on your path?
[00:07:14] Nikki: Absolutely. I have done so many things. I am a bookworm, I love books. And so that's really where I started was devouring things to try to understand myself and also make myself better. That was the initial part of it is, "How can I fix myself?" I know there's information that can fix me so I can fit in. And a friend of mine actually said to me, do you read self-help books because you feel like something's wrong with you or do you read them to improve on what is already there?
[00:07:48] Laura: Ooo, nice distinction.
[00:07:50] Nikki: Right? And I think I was just like, "No, it's definitely to improve!" But then I got home and really started thinking about it. And that was when I realized that I felt wrong and I was trying to fix myself and put all the books away. Like all of the self-help books went into a box. And I took time to reflect not just on what I was doing, but also what I was learning, the people who were around me, what I was doing, because I felt wrong instead of, "Hey, I'm okay right here. And I want to do better. I want to improve myself. I want to keep growing." So, I've done energy healing, I've done classes, I've done yoga, I've done acupuncture and chiropractic and herbs, and you know, to support spirituality, I've studied different religions. And so, I really am a seeker, um, not necessarily to find the answer, but to figure out what my answers are.
[00:08:58] Laura: Oh, I like that. I like that.
[00:09:00] Sara: I love that too, Nikki. And it sounds like it was like, you were intentionally choosing to live more instead of trying to create something that you're not. It sounds like you had this shift where you when I was listening to you talk, it sounded like you shifted to being more intentional about choosing your life. Would that be a fair thing to say?
[00:09:21] Nikki: Yeah. To choosing my life and to understanding myself and other people.
[00:09:27] Louise: How do you feel that coaching is different than self-help?
[00:09:31] Nikki: Coaching is personal. Self-help is it is a great for information gathering. But when you want to unpack your own self, where you come from, what your stories are, what has impacted you and how to change that in a way that works specifically for you, coaching is a whole different experience with that.
[00:09:53] Nikki: Books are great. Videos are great. Classes are great and amazing, and they give you information. Coaching helps you sort through that information to discover that core of truth for you personally. Because you can take in all that of the things, but if you're not taking in the right things for you that serve you in your life in a way that allows you to serve others from that place you're doing a disservice to yourself, to the world, to the other people in your life.
[00:10:23] Louise: Yeah. I get a really good sense from you that, you know, it's, it's about uncovering what's already there as opposed to like adding in when we feel deficient on fulfillment in all areas of our life. We want to fill it up.
[00:10:38] Nikki: Yes.
[00:10:38] Louise: And so we just get into this consumer mode where it's, let me find the right answer. It's gotta be out there. So, you just devour books and videos, like you said, all of that information and it sometimes can get piled on top of the answer, because the answer is, is already within you. It's already a part of you.
[00:11:00] Nikki: Well, and it gets piled on top of you too. You know, you take in all of this stuff, and pretty soon you're suffocating, and you don't know what you think anymore. Because you just have all of this information and taking the time to process it or discuss it either in relationship with other people or with a coach, to be able to process is an important piece of it as well. And it took me a long time to learn that.
[00:11:22] Laura: That was something that really struck me when you said that you put all your books away and you took time to process. And I thought that was a really courageous thing to do to stop learning and now actually do some internal work.
[00:11:36] Nikki: Well and one, one of my favorite quotes in the whole world is "You can be a work in progress and a masterpiece at the same time." And I think of Leonardo DaVinci, if, if he suddenly appeared today and you said, "Oh, the Mona Lisa is perfect." He would tell you things that he would still want to work on, on it. He carried it around with him everywhere. He was constantly fiddling with it. Like this was something that he never felt finished and, you know, it's hanging in the Louvre as this masterpiece. And I think he would say it's still in progress.
[00:12:08] Sara: I literally just wrote that quote down and I'm going to put it on a post-it note and put it on my wall. What an amazing, I love that quote, "You can be a work in progress and a masterpiece at the same time." Because we're always trying to be our best selves, but it doesn't mean we're not living our best selves at the same time. We're always evolving. I love that.
[00:12:26] Nikki: Well, and if you're living your best as you are who you are with what you know right now, that's amazing. Tomorrow may be a different best. Maybe you break your ankle, knock on wood, but maybe you break your ankle, and tomorrow your best is, resting so you can heal. It's just being whatever your best is right now with where you are and how you are.
[00:12:48] Kim: And I, I love that, and I feel like a lot of people misunderstand being your best.
[00:12:55] Nikki: Yes.
[00:12:56] Kim: Right. Could you speak a little bit more into this idea of being your best and what that actually looks like? Does it look perfect?
[00:13:04] Nikki: Oh my gosh, no. Please. no. And heavens no, and absolutely no to that. Perfection isn't the best. Perfection is a myth, at least in my head. I don't want to speak for everybody, but to try to strive for perfection is not genuine. To me, it feels like there's no resonance there. If I'm speaking to a perfect person, I don't know if I can relate to that. Anybody else?
[00:13:36] Sara: I mean, you've spoken to me before, so...
[00:13:38] Laura: Oh my gosh.
[00:13:42] Nikki: There's always an exception to the rule, right?
[00:13:46] Louise: It's it's funny. Cause that's the struggle that we, we insert "perfect" into the "best" and you know, our podcast is called The Best Parts, not The Perfect Parts.
[00:13:59] Nikki: Cause all the parts of the best parts.
[00:14:01] Louise: Right? And, and it's really interesting. I think we somewhere along the line that we pick up the story that, that "perfect" is a synonym for "best"
[00:14:12] Nikki: Well and we look at these images of highly filtered, very contrived, social media posts, and with the beautiful background and people aren't always even there. And you have a picture in Greece, and they have Photoshopped themselves there. And so, it looks perfect. But is it? If it's not real, is it perfect? I would rather have a conversation with somebody who is really being real with me and authentic and having that lovely deep conversation as opposed to somebody who was just telling me how great and wonderful and perfect their life was.
[00:14:46] Kim: Well, not even photo-shopped right. Not even going to that level, but how many times did they take that selfie to get it just right?
[00:14:53] Nikki: Yeah. I mean, we want to present our best faces. Like if we're having through a blink or we sneeze in the picture.
[00:15:00] Kim: Yeah but that's real.
[00:15:01] Nikki: And those are awesome. Like those, I love seeing those too, but sometimes, you know, sometimes you do want to put that best foot forward where you just need a picture in your red lipstick, smiling or laughing or whatever for all the world to see that you feel like is the best picture you put forward today.
[00:15:18] Kim: Oh, that can change from day-to-day.
[00:15:20] Nikki: Absolutely.
[00:15:21] Kim: You can choose that today. I need the red lipstick and, or I want the red lips and you can choose another day that the best way to put myself forward is to show that I'm in pain or that I'm human. And I, you know, like the other night, my daughter and I had this huge, she's doing a bake sale. And so we had all of this cooking stuff --
[00:15:43] Nikki: That you can't share with us, which is not fair.
[00:15:47] Kim: It's so true. I apologize. And then we just had this huge flour fight. Like we were taking handfuls of flour and throwing at each other.
[00:15:54] Laura: Oh my gosh.
[00:15:55] Nikki: That's Amazing!
[00:15:56] Kim: So much fun And so instead of just taking these perfect pictures of these beautiful muffins and cookies that she made, we actually showed the pictures of us covered in flour, because that was fun.
[00:16:07] Nikki: And that's perfect to me.
[00:16:08] Kim: Right.
[00:16:09] Nikki: As much as I don't want to use the word perfect. But those are the places I want to go. I want to go into the flour fights. I want to be muddy and dirty. Show me mud run pictures and I will be there all day.
[00:16:20] Kim: Okay. Right. Well, it's real. And being a real human being and showing those best parts instead of trying to strive for perfection and living the best life, in all of its messy, goodness is what I'm hearing you say is what you're hoping for everybody.
[00:16:37] Nikki: Yeah. Life is the messy bits. It's from a movie that I cannot think of right now, but somebody was talking about trying to live a perfect life and avoiding the messy bits.
[00:16:45] Nikki: A this wise woman said, life is the messy beds. And that's what I love. That's what I love about life is it's crazy and chaotic and wonderful and different. And to try to make it look perfect isn't fun. It sounds stressful
[00:17:00] Laura: So, Nikki, when we talked, one of the other things we had discussed was another word that you're not a fan of also happens to start with the P "purpose." I was wondering if you could tell us about what your concerns are about people using the word purpose.
[00:17:14] Nikki: Well, I think it's, it's bit of the buzzwordiness of it. Like "I found my purpose!" Has anybody ever heard anybody say yes, I have found my purpose except Sara, because I know she has found hers.
[00:17:24] Sara: I've totally said that, actually. I'm genuinely curious about what your thoughts are on purpose.
[00:17:31] Laura: I've actually also said that, Sara. I've also said that. So, I'm really curious what she's going to say as well.
[00:17:37] Sara: Nikki, light us up right now. I can't wait to hear this.
[00:17:40] Nikki: What I think the challenge is people trying to figure out what their purpose is, as opposed to discovering, what am I passionate about? What drives me? What lights me up? What wakes me up? What doesn't feel like work? What is the thing that allows me to serve from a place of joy? And the reason I don't like putting the word "purpose" on it is because it feels very singular to me because I have a lot of passions. I have a lot of things that light me up.
[00:18:11] Nikki: And as I've leaned into being a coach and done training and classes and educating myself on what it means to be a coach. I don't know if I would say coaching is my purpose, but it is a passion. It drives me. And it sounds super cheesy to say that which I'm leaning into, but when I would think about "What is my purpose, why am I here? What am I doing?" That buried me. And so to hear people, "I'm trying to figure out what my purpose is, what is my purpose? Why am I here?" I think it puts it outside of you and it's out of your control. This divine being said, "Your purpose you created for is this," instead of "What am I excited about? What is my heart leading me towards? What is my passion?" And that feels more powerful to me than purpose.
[00:19:04] Sara: I totally get it now. Oh, because I love talking about passion versus purpose, because I don't know if I've ever actually gone down this road of what's my purpose. I've just followed what I'm passionate about. And then when I got to that place, that's where I felt like I had found my purpose.
[00:19:22] Sara: So I think maybe, and you can tell me what you think here like there might be a difference between searching for your purpose and then realize like, you're, you've gotten to a place where you're doing what you're supposed to be doing, and it just feels right. And so, I liked that differentiating of passion versus purpose.
[00:19:38] Nikki: And that I think is what sticks me on "purpose" is what am I supposed to do? Because what is my purpose that I'm supposed to be doing. Instead, passion is what do I get to do? What do I want to do? What, what is that thing that is lighting me up to do?
[00:19:53] Kim: It's so interesting because what I'm hearing is the difference between an internal choice versus an external choice.
[00:19:59] Nikki: Absolutely.
[00:20:00] Kim: Yeah, which is so important that we have that opportunity to listen to our own voices, our own internal voices, our own intuition, and understand what lights us up.
[00:20:13] Nikki: And that's where the empowerment comes from.
[00:20:14] Kim: Yeah.
[00:20:15] Nikki: That's you know, if you're constantly looking outside of yourself for what is driving you and what you're supposed to be doing, that's not that internal fire that is going to drive you.
[00:20:25] Laura: I wish I had known this a few years ago. Because this would have been so helpful because I felt like I was flailing trying to find my quote "purpose." And it would have been helpful to say," Okay, what lights you up?" Tell me what you're passionate about because now one of the things I notice is there are multiple things that light me up and I try to spend time doing all of those things or as many of them as I can so that I live a fuller life. Part of it, I think is what I'm "supposed to be doing.' Um, but yeah, that would have been helpful to have looked at it from that direction a few years ago.
[00:21:04] Nikki: People often also equate purpose with their job or their work. Passion can drive you in all your directions, creativity, volunteering, your family, also your work, but everything else in your life as well.
[00:21:21] Laura: I'm glad you mentioned work, Nikki, because I want us to time hop back to a prior episode, episode three. And you were talking about the various careers you've had, and you said" I've always gone where I want to go" and then you proceeded to let us know that you've done marketing and HR, and you've been a flight attendant, attendant. And done office management and membership recruitment. And I remember as you were running down this list, I thought, "Wow, it seems so brave. And so fearless that you had done this." How? How did you do that? That wasn't the way I was brought up.
[00:21:55] Nikki: I really unknowingly followed the flow of what I wanted to do. Like for the flight attendant, it was literally an ad in a newspaper. Yes. Dating myself. I think that's the fourth time now, but it was a tiny ad in a newspaper for a commuter airline that was owned by a major carrier and on a whim, I was like, "Oh, that sounds like that would be cool." So, I applied, I got the phone interview, worked through the process, and come to find out that that's not always how it works for people. It's actually pretty hard to get a job in the airline industry. But it just, it opened up when I was like, "Hey, let's do that." It just opened up for, for it to happen. And so it's really just paying attention to that curiosity, but also kind of what's calling to me. And I know it's not traditional.
[00:22:41] Nikki: I think I stressed my parents out a lot because it wasn't the work at a job for 40 years in the same industry at the same company and work your way up to the top of the ladder or the glass ceiling. And, you know, that just has never been what I wanted or who I am, or I'm wondering if Louise is cringing right now as, as a career renovation specialist. Or if she's like, "yeah, this is what I love about people."
[00:23:08] Louise: Well, you know, it's really interesting as you, as you talk, right. And, and being a multi-passionate person is not about having a purpose. Like when, when we talk about purpose, oftentimes we think of it very singularly and that there's this thing that I am just meant to do in my life.
[00:23:27] Louise: No. There's not a thing, right. And, and get caught up in that, looking for that perfect thing. As so, as you're talking, it really is, it's the same thing. We, we often fall into that trap of, there is a perfect thing for me. There is a perfect purpose or there's, or it’s, it’s one thing that will not change throughout my whole life.
[00:23:55] Louise: And that's just absolutely not true. It's not true in your life. It's not true in your relationships. It's not true at your job. It's, we're all evolving through our whole lives in many different ways. So being connected to your insides is really what drives the bus at the end of the day.
[00:24:17] Kim: Right? We're whole people. We are each individually, whole people. And we here’ the cool thing and I think I mentioned it last week too, is that we get to choose how we live our lives. And I love Nikki that you have done so unapologetically with your life and will continue to do so
[00:24:35] Nikki: Well and it's funny because I used to feel wrong about that.
[00:24:38] Kim: Yeah, I know.
[00:24:38] Nikki: Because it's so it's so different. I mean, not only have I done all these jobs, my dog and I lived in an RV for four months and traveled the Southwestern part of the United States, and I've done all of these things and I'm like, Oh, you know, back into that otherness and weirdness. And it's so funny because people are like, "You traveled in an RV? I've always wanted to do that." I'm like, "Well, why don't you?" That's possible. So these things, these things are possible, but it's all about what we tell ourselves we can and can't do, or what we believe about ourselves or what is possible.
[00:25:08] Sara: Nikki, let's say you have a client come to you and they're in this place, the pre-Nikki that we have now, right? The Nikki back then that felt like, "Oh, what's my purpose? And I feel weird and I feel different. I don't know what I want. And I'm trying to live to someone else's standards." And you have that client come to you. What are the types of things that you would do with that client to to help them realize that following their passion, may be the better thought process? Are there any types of tools you would give them or how would you handle that situation?
[00:25:40] Nikki: Yeah. Well, first I would start with breathwork. Surprising, right?
[00:25:46] Sara: Let's all take a breath.
[00:25:48] Nikki: Everybody pause, and just inhale and feel how that feels in your body right now.
[00:26:00] Kim: I just want to say thank you. Right. Because that's that thing that we so often forget to do. So just thank you for that.
[00:26:06] Nikki: So yes, you're welcome, but --
[00:26:07] Sara: I don't feel as stressed, so yes, thank you for that breath.
[00:26:11] Nikki: Yeah. Well, it brings us to right now. Breath is very much about right now. Am I inhaling? Am I pausing? Am I exhaling? The fun science-y stuff that I love too, it engages that para-sympathetic system. It brings us out of fight-flight or freeze. It brings you to right now because breath is right now. So, before we look at what happened, where we want to go, we need to be where we are now. There is so many aspects to that.
[00:26:40] Nikki: But I have found the easiest and most successful way is to breathe. And part of me thinks that sounds silly to say that, but part of me is like, "Yes! Oh my gosh, please." So that's how I start as breath and finding where we are now. Because sometimes what we think we want is that external messaging, again, that we talked about.
[00:27:03] Nikki: So really getting to the core of where we are now is how I like to start with people. Because then we can look at the past and what has formed that. And then we can vision into the future about what we want from who we are and how to best live into that.
[00:27:19] Laura: Quite often in our production meetings, Nikki starts us off with breathwork, just taking a breath, slowing down for a moment. And so besides going for coaching certification in 2020, Nikki, you decided to become a Yogi as well, like holy overachiever, Batman. Tell us about that decision.
[00:27:40] Nikki: Well, yoga has always been something that calls to me, but I struggled with. Because I would leave classes and be like, "Oh, it was okay." And I would see people around me like," Oh, that was the best yoga class." And I always felt like there was a piece or pieces of it missing for me that I didn't get to that, “Oh yes. Yay, yoga!" But there was something there that kept me going. So, in my quest for wisdom and understanding and curiosity and knowledge and all of those things, I was like, let's do a yoga teacher training so I can maybe discover what this piece is.
[00:28:16] Nikki: I had signed up for it and of course COVID happened and they ended up doing it virtually, which was great. I would have loved to do it in person because it's at my favorite retreat center in the whole wide world. But to be able to still I'll have that was such a blessing to me. So yeah, let's just throw something else in there, and made it work. I mean, had a lot of support from everybody around me knowing like, "Oh, I know you're doing this training. How can I help you? How can I be there? Let's talk. I miss you." And really showing up for me too, which was tremendous.
[00:28:50] Laura: So your connection helped.
[00:28:52] Nikki: Absolutely. Which in the past, I would have thought that would have been overwhelming. Like, "Oh, don't give me one more thing." But it was connection with people who were trying to support me instead of saying, "Oh, you're the person we always go to. I need you to do this for me." It was, "How can I show up for you? What do you need for me now?"
[00:29:09] Laura: Wow. That's nice.
[00:29:10] Nikki: It was amazing.
[00:29:12] Laura: You said you've done a lot of training, a lot of courses, you know, including becoming a Yogi. How does that training help you with your clients? Does it influence how you do your coaching?
[00:29:21] Nikki: I think it gives me a pretty broad perspective, but Kim, you can correct me if I'm wrong. I think you had mentioned my curiosity once and I never had thought of that before that that was a piece of it for me.
[00:29:34] Kim: Yeah, that was one of those things that just early on and getting to know you, it was one of those things that was just so apparent to me was your deep curiosity about everything. And it was, it made me lean more deeply into my own curiosity about myself, about the world, about my clients. And so, yeah, when I, when I think of you, it's always, it's almost Nancy Drew-ish because -- Yay!
[00:30:01] Laura: Oh no!
[00:30:03] Kim: I know we talked about her earlier, but it really is. It's looking for the clues and trying to figure it out and understanding if you go down one path and it's not what you were expecting, wanting or need that you're like, yeah, that's okay. Let's look another way. It's it just doesn't seem to get you stuck anywhere, which is just amazing.
[00:30:22] Nikki: Well, and I just, I love knowing things and I love understanding things, I guess, even more than knowing things, is that understanding. So that piece for me, just is what drives me. I think it's being willing to ask the questions. After our training retreat, there were people who would pull me aside and say, "I'm so glad you asked that. I never would have had the guts to do it."
[00:30:46] Nikki: And I always, I felt like a puppy dog because I would tilt my head to the side and say, "Why not? If you want to know something, please ask." Because that's just part of who I am is I want to know this, so I'm going to ask. If somebody thinks I'm dumb, that's fine. But at least I get my answer and I get to live my life forward.
[00:31:02] Nikki: And so as a coach, I will ask a question, even if it sounds weird, even if it seems like it's out of left field because my brain likes putting things together in different ways. And so it's, I get to be curious out of that.
[00:31:16] Laura: I like that. So, who is your ideal client? Who is it you want to help?
[00:31:21] Nikki: The people who I love working with are mindful in their evolution. They have done work on themselves. They have investigated a lot. They probably took a similar journey to me, where they had books. They had classes. They've done all of these supportive things and they're ready for more. But they're ready for more, in a way that is going to help or change how they show up in the world, outside of themselves. They have passion for serving and maybe they're even discovering how they want to serve in the world. But when you serve, if you are not taking care of yourself, then you cannot serve from the best parts of yourself. But there needs to be nourishment for you as you are supporting in that role.
[00:32:09] Sara: [I love that so much, Nicki. Because I, I having been a college coach for so long, it was seven or eight years into my career that I realized I needed a coach for me. I'm coaching college athletes. Who's coaching me? And I found a coach. And that was her tagline "Is who coaches you?" And I realized those of us that help others still need someone to help us. I think that when people who are serving others realize that then they can serve others even better when they're getting help themselves. So I love that.
[00:32:39] Nikki: Yeah, well, and there's a saying, and I'm hoping I'm not butchering it, "You can't pour from an empty vessel." And so, if you're giving all of yourself, how are you refilling that? How are you refilling your vessel so you can give more? Because when people are strong and healthy and in a good headspace, it's crazy how much you can give.
[00:33:00] Laura: Yeah, that makes so much sense. So, Nikki, where can we find you? Where are all the places we can locate you if somebody wants to reach out and learn more about you and, and your coaching practice?
[00:33:10] Nikki: Yeah, it's Nikki Baker Wulf. N I K K I B A K E R W U L F in all of the places.
[00:33:20] Laura: Do you have anything coming up, anything planned that you could give us a sneak peek on?
[00:33:24] Nikki: Yeah. I am working on something that hopefully it'll make everybody laugh with me. I'm calling it "Morning Breath."
[00:33:32] Kim: Oh, you have that too?
[00:33:34] Nikki: I know, right?
[00:33:35] Sara: I have it right now!
[00:33:37] Nikki: It's a place you can show up without brushing your teeth. Yeah.
[00:33:39] Laura: Oh my gosh.
[00:33:39] Nikki: Is what I'm saying.
[00:33:41] Kim: I love that!
[00:33:43] Sara: Love it. Well, I'm already here, so, its morning and I haven't brushed my teeth yet.
[00:33:48] Nikki: It's a short, mindful pause daily. For me, I do it in the morning. That's why I'm calling it Morning Breath to really bring yourself and start the day from that present moment from that breath that I love so much. It's under five minutes. It's not going to demand a lot of time because we already have a lot of things demanding our time and attention. But to have a moment to pause and connect really has an impact on the rest of your day.
[00:34:15] Nikki: So it's a membership thing it's coming up and you can go to my website to find out more information about that. That is the biggest thing. I also have some courses and groups launching later this fall. So, if you want to be on the list for that, please sign up to get notified when those are going live.
[00:34:31] Laura: That's awesome. And again, we often start our production meetings with morning breath, not just Sara. And Nikki has a beautiful way about taking us into that beautiful space, so...
[00:34:44] Nikki: I'm going to ask Louise to say something about that cause she told me something that was really cool. If do you remember Louise? Do you know what I'm talking about?
[00:34:50] Louise: No. What did I say? It was probably brilliant.
[00:34:52] Nikki: It was brilliant.
[00:34:53] Louise: Yeah.
[00:34:54] Nikki: You said that when I do breathwork with you, you see.
[00:34:58] Louise: Oh yeah, I do.
[00:35:01] Nikki: Could you just describe it?
[00:35:02] Louise: You're right. It was brilliant.
[00:35:03] Nikki: You did say that.
[00:35:04] Laura: Yep, you said it.
[00:35:06] Nikki: I did say that that's right.
[00:35:07] Louise: Yeah. Yeah. It's the way that you conduct your breathing practices I get so visual. It is absolutely more than, than a than energy that flows through my body. It is actually I'm., I just, I see my breath. It has a, it has a pattern. It has a shape. It's yeah, it's absolutely amazing.
[00:35:32] Nikki: Thank you.
[00:35:32] Laura: Beautiful. So are you ready for the Lightening Round?
[00:35:35] Nikki: Bring it on!
[00:35:37] Laura: I couldn't remember what it was.
[00:35:39] Kim: My God, you just butchered it.
[00:35:42] Laura: Sorry.
[00:35:42] Nikki: I love it though. It was perfect.
[00:35:46] Laura: I liked mine better.
[00:35:50] Kim: Alright.
[00:35:50] Nikki: I liked all of them. They were wonderful.
[00:35:53] Kim: I didn't say yours wasn't – no, I did. I totally did.
[00:35:56] Laura: Yeah, you did.
[00:35:56] Nikki: You totally did.
[00:35:57] Laura: "You just butchered it."
[00:36:02] Nikki: Butchers are important.
[00:36:04] Kim: They are. They're real. They're important. This is their chosen passion. Unless your father or mother did it. And then they probably were just kind of in the family business, but I digress.
[00:36:16] Sara: All of our vegan people just winced.
[00:36:20] Kim: All the PETA people too.
[00:36:22] Laura: Back to –
[00:36:24] Nikki: What were we talking about again? I'm sorry.
[00:36:25] Lightening Round
[00:36:27] Laura: The regularly scheduled Lightening Round. The best part of a salty-sweet treat such as bacon-wrapped dates, the salty, or the sweet?
[00:36:40] Nikki: Oh, I mean the combo of the two. I know I like them separate, but together it's just magic.
[00:36:50] Sara: I choose bacon.
[00:36:52] Laura: Me too. That was what I said.
[00:36:54] Kim: Well, Nikki I'm with you. I want them together.
[00:36:58] Laura: Now. I want bacon-wrapped dates. Thanks. Thanks, Laura.
[00:37:02] Kim: Right? You did it yourself.
[00:37:03] Laura: I know.
[00:37:04] Nikki: Well, although I do have to say I'm going to bring up a sore subject for Minnesotans because the State Fair was canceled this year. I did try chocolate-dipped bacon with some sea salt on it, and it was not good. I had high hopes for it, and I did not enjoy it.
[00:37:17] Kim: Hmm.
[00:37:18] Laura: Hmm.
[00:37:19] Nikki: But peanut butter and chocolate man all day, every day.
[00:37:23] Laura: All right. The best part of waking up. Did anybody else hear in your head?
[00:37:30] Kim: Totally! Is Folgers in your cup!
[00:37:35] Louise: Maybe they'll sponsor us.
[00:37:36] Kim: I was just about to say, this podcast has not been sponsored by Folgers. However, if you would like to, we're available.
[00:37:42] Louise: Yeah, please reach out.
[00:37:43] Nikki: Um, the best part of waking up is Morning Breath.
[00:37:46] Laura: Oh, good answer.
[00:37:49] Kim: Ah, love it! Nice plug!
[00:37:52] Nikki: It just fit in so perfectly. But you know, let's go with it.
[00:37:56] Laura: The best part of a novel the beginning or the end?
[00:38:03] Sara: The middle.
[00:38:05] Kim: Sara! It's not your question!
[00:38:09] Laura: You're not answering!
[00:38:09] Louise: Sara!
[00:38:10] Sara: There was too much silence. Sorry.
[00:38:12] Kim: Oh my gosh. You gotta learn to hold silence.
[00:38:14] Nikki: I know. I'm such a bookworm. The end is the best and the worst because the story is over, but you get the payoff. So I'm going to say the end is the best and the end is the worst.
[00:38:28] Laura: The best part of the nineties, grunge music.
[00:38:31 ] Kim: Is there one?
[00:38:33] Nikki: Nirvana.
[00:38:34] Kim: Okay. There is one.
[00:38:37] Louise: One.
[00:38:39] Nikki: Well, it was, it was such, it was such a time back in the day. I was taking college courses as an, as an older adult person. And I was saying something about music, and somebody called it oldies. And it hit me like in the heart and I went, "It's not oldies!" And then I did the math and I was like: it is oldies now. Oh my gosh. It's oldies.
[00:39:04] Laura: I'd have said Pearl Jam. That was my answer.
[00:39:07] Nikki: Oh yeah.
[00:39:08] Louise: A good one too.
[00:39:09] Kim: Yeah. Okay. Well, proved wrong there again. My God.
[00:39:12] Nikki: Twice, twice.
[00:39:13] Kim: So many times, today. Already.
[00:39:15] Nikki: Get it out of the way,
[00:39:16] Laura: The last question. The best part of a yoga practice.
[00:39:21] Nikki: The best part of a yoga practice is I'm trying to think of how to say this. I like, I feel it, but now I have to put it to words. The best part of a yoga practice is remembering that it's yoga practice, not yoga perfect. Which is always a cheesy line, but it allows you to be where you are today. If you have a sore shoulder, you can adapt. If something isn't feeling good in your body, you either lean into it or you recognize that you might need to back off. And so it's that presence is the best part of a yoga practice.
[00:39:53] Laura: Beautiful. So, thank you, Nikki, so much for being our guest today in the Hot Seat.
[00:39:58] Nikki: Thank you.
[00:39:59] Laura: And this brings us to the end of our sixth episode. So, thank you everyone for pulling up a chair and joining us. Bye for now.
[00:40:06] Kim: Thanks for joining us today for another episode of the best parts podcast. If you like what you heard today, we would love it if you would share this podcast on social media or with anyone else you think would enjoy it. After all sharing is caring and be sure to leave a rating or review on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to podcasts, as it helps others find us.
[00:40:28] Kim: If you'd like to connect with us, you can find us on Instagram @thebestpartspodcast or head over to our website at thebestparts.Podbean.com.
[00:40:37] Kim: Thanks for listening. And until next time, remember that all of the parts are the best part.
Tuesday Aug 25, 2020
Tuesday Aug 25, 2020
Episode 5 - Today we're going to be turning the tables a little and shining the spotlight on our very own Harmonious Life Coach Kim Romain. You will recognize Kim's voice here on The Best Parts Podcast as she welcomes you each week to pull up a chair. Kim is a former practicing attorney, consultant, and nonprofit executive. And besides The Best Parts Podcast, Kim is creator of Harmonious Life Coaching and the Balance is BS training program. She helps individuals and groups see how focusing on work life balance can create stress, burnout and disconnection. She then transforms her clients by getting them to create a more harmonious and integrated life through releasing stuck and stagnant belief patterns and setting healthy boundaries.
Coming up you can work with Kim, on September 10th in a Virtual Visualization workshop helping identify where you are, where you want to go and visualize a future for yourself. And then you'll leave that with one or two action steps to send you in the right direction.
On September 30th, a 12-week Balance Is Bullshit training program. With daily 5-10 minutes short actions and a monthly visualization workshop, as well as the group coaching.
You can find Kim at www.harmoniouslifecoach.com. On Instagram and Facebook at harmoniouslifecoach and on LinkedIn at Kim Romain.
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[00:00:00] Kim: Stevie Nicks is my other spirit animal. So there's that.
[00:00:03] Louise: I think most days my spirit animal is a squirrel.
[00:00:06] Sara: All the little parts are what make us whole.
[00:00:09] Laura: So tell me, what's making you twitch about that word.
[00:00:11] Nikki: Fine I'll just do it!
[00:00:17] Laura: Hi, I'm Laura.
[00:00:18] Sara: Hi, I'm Sara.
[00:00:20] Kim: And I'm Kim.
[00:00:21] Nikki: This is Nikki.
[00:00:22] Louise: And I'm Louise.
[00:00:24] Kim: Hi, and welcome to The Best Parts Podcast, where we invite you to pull up a chair and think about your best parts, which are all your parts.
[00:00:34] Louise: Hello, everyone and welcome here to our table today. I am so happy you could join us for this episode number five. So, pull up a chair, or if you've been inspired to bring more movement into your life lately, maybe this is the episode you strap on your sneakers or jump on your bike for the next half hour or so. Today we're going to be turning the tables a little and shining the spotlight on our very own Harmonious Life Coach Kim Romain. You will recognize Kim's voice here on The Best Parts Podcast as she welcomes you each week to pull up a chair. Kim is a former practicing attorney, consultant, and nonprofit executive. And besides The Best Parts Podcast, Kim is creator of Harmonious Life Coaching and the Balance is BS training program.
[00:01:23] Louise: She helps individuals and groups see how focusing on work life balance can create stress, burnout and disconnection. She then transforms her clients by getting them to create a more harmonious and integrated life through releasing stuck and stagnant belief patterns and setting healthy boundaries. So, Hey Kim.
[00:01:42] Kim: Hey Louise.
[00:01:43] Louise: So glad we get a chance here today to chat with you a little more. I'm super excited.
[00:01:48] Kim: Me too. Yay!
[00:01:51] Louise: So, I was thinking one of the first times you and I had connected after our retreat, we were on a call with a bunch of other coaching professionals. And this call really stood out for me. As during the call, we were kind of talking and sharing about our philosophies and how we would work those philosophies and values into our programs and our offerings.
[00:02:15] Louise: And I remember you with such resounding passion, saying, "Balance is bullshit!" And I was like, "What is she talking about?" Cause I, I felt like I always had been striving for that balance. And here you were saying it's something different. And I was wondering if you could just speak into that a little bit. Cause I just, I remember it blowing my mind.
[00:02:41] Kim: Yeah absolutely. Well, it blew my mind when I finally had the aha moment that this is actually the truth that I live in. So many years ago, I was just trying to balance everything. If I just did the work life balance thing, if I just got that under control, if I just figured that out, then, then everything would be fine.
[00:02:58] Kim: I had a newborn. I was just out of practicing law and just new into the nonprofit sector. And working my tail off day and night and never feeling like this balance thing took anything into consideration with what my life actually meant to me. And I had this wonderful coach one time, and all she did was ask me what would happen if you didn't live in balance?
[00:03:23] Kim: And it was like, I woke up. I, it was all of a sudden I went, "Wait, what? That's an option? I don't, I don't, I don't have to live in balance?" And I started really diving into what does the word mean to me, for myself? That almost everybody I know balance has caused more stress, more anxiety, more depression, more tension.
[00:03:45] Kim: And it just doesn't work. I like to give the analogy of like, we need balance at certain points in our lives, right? If we're trying to do tree pose, which I'm horrible at, but if we're trying you know any of the balancing poses, those are important, right? Like we need the balance, but balance creates tension in our body. Balance creates that. And that's what we want because it creates the flexibility. It creates the strength that we need and that's great, but it doesn't work, for the way we live our lives. That's what I found anyway.
[00:04:18] Louise: Yeah, I love that. Cause you know, like you said, as a, as a working parent or just in life in general, I always feel like there's these buckets to fill and there's there's a teeter totter and there's work on one side and life on the other.
[00:04:34] Louise: And we're constantly trying to get this teeter totter to, to be in balance, to be at this, this flat unmoving level.
[00:04:45] Nikki: Well Louise I love the teeter totter analogy. Cause I just pictured you like on one side, running to the other, running to the other and kind of stopping in the middle. You know, and how you would balance one foot on each side trying to find the middle, but you never stopped moving to try to get to that middle. Like it was never, you never got a stop point. It's always adjusting.
[00:05:04] Louise: Exhausting, right?
[00:05:06] Nikki: Yeah.
[00:05:07] Louise: Yeah.
[00:05:07] Kim: Yep. That's exactly it. And it is exhausting. And, and the thing that, that has always kind of blown my mind when we think about this it's work and everything else in your life. You talked about 90,000 hours of work.
[00:05:25] Louise: Yep.
[00:05:25] Kim: So, 90,000 hours of "work" and "the rest of your life."
[00:05:30] Nikki: That number still makes my stomach, go "AHHHH."
[00:05:33] Kim: It does for me as well. And yet I might wait for me. It's, what?? Yes. I want to be doing something for work that I love so much it doesn't feel like work. Absolutely. But the reality is I'm here on this planet for so much more than the work that I do.
[00:05:56] Kim: And I feel like it's been discounted because it's "work "and "the rest of your life."
[00:06:00] Louise: Right?
[00:06:01] Sara: Do we get 90,000 hours for the rest of our lives too, Louise? Because I'm thinking about that too. I love this concept of balance is BS, and I've always agreed with this Kim. There are moments in your life that you might feel in balance for a little bit, but I just think it's an unattainable goal.
[00:06:18] Sara: And I completely agreeing with what you're saying. And one of the things I've always heard is, you know, like they say that work life balance. It just makes me feel nauseous cause it's not possible. So, I've always said work life blend. And that just sits with me better. And I feel like that kind of goes into what you're saying about creating harmony.
[00:06:35] Sara: So, I really appreciate hearing this and I can't wait to figure out how I'm going to spend the other 90,000 hours.
[00:06:40] Kim: Right. Yeah, absolutely. It’s so interesting that you said work life blend, because really what I'm talking about, living a harmonious life, I'm talking about living an integrated life. It can't be "work" and "the rest of our life." You can't just silo out this part of life that we call work and then expect the rest of our life to be quote unquote balanced. It just doesn't work. I know that when I focus on that when I'm like, “Okay, has everybody gotten enough time?" Not even equal time, right? Cause equal time can't even happen. But especially if you're talking about 90,000 hours of work and then the rest of your life filling up the rest of it. It's like Louise said, it's all these different buckets.
[00:07:18] Kim: And making sure that each of those buckets gets a little bit of your attention. The only way to do it is to stop siloing things and to really start integrating. And I think we've had this really cool opportunity, many of us have had this really cool opportunity to play with this a little bit more. And I understand it stressed a lot of people out during this time of quarantine and during COVID-19 where a lot of people have been working from home.
[00:07:43] Kim: And they have their kids home. They're, you know, helping with remote learning. They're doing all of the stuff. And I get that it's stressful. And if we weren't trying to look at our lives in these siloed buckets and you start looking at it as integration and start taking stock of all of the amazing things that you're able to do during the day, you'd feel less stressful.
[00:08:05] Kim: I know that I do.
[00:08:06] Laura: So, I'm really confused now. I have a part of me that's scared because I've lived with this idea of work life balance all of my 50 odd years. And so, I want to hear more about this integration thing, because I have parts that are like, "What do you mean I can't do this? This is what I've been working towards all of my life." Tell me what to do, Kim, tell me what to do!
[00:08:27] Kim: Oh, little part. I just wanted to hug you. So, what do we do to integrate our lives? There's a lot of logistical things that we have to do. I had to get rid of separate planners and separate notebooks. I had to truly integrate my lives. Now, some people that is not going to work for because their brains that's gonna confuse their brains.
[00:08:47] Kim: And that's totally fine, but what works for me and what I have my clients play with is do you have separate calendars? Do you have separate notebooks? Do you have separate planners? Do you have separate planning time where you're parsing out and siloing out the different parts of your life? If you are, then you're not looking at yourself holistically. And what you need to shift to is having an opportunity to holistically look at how you're showing up in your life. So, one of the tools that I like working with that early on with somebody is this concept of, "To Do" and "Got Done." And it's a side-by-side list that you put out on your desk every day. And on your “To Do” side, you brain dump in the morning, all the things that you have to do that day, whether they're on your calendar or not, it's all those things that you have To Do.
[00:09:35] Kim: And the other column you have the “Got Done.” And the “Got Done” is, is as you're crossing the things off on your, “To Do” list that you've accomplished that day you write those on your, “Got Done.” The other things that you put on your “Got Done,” you know, for me, it's when my daughter comes upstairs and needs help with an assignment or needs help logging in, or I end up going down a rabbit hole with somebody in email.
[00:10:01] Kim: I, I put that on my “Got Done” because I spent time doing that. And quite frankly, during times of quarantine, I also put on there "shower". There are days where I'm in a really bad mood and I put, “Got Done.” I laugh because hell yeah, that can be an accomplishment.
[00:10:16] Sara: Absolutely. I've always said that. I love this Kim, cause I've done this before, where there's days that I'm at work and I have a To Do list that sits on my desk all the time.
[00:10:24] Sara: So I just, cause I try to stay super organized and there's days I've looked at my list and I'm like, I didn't do anything on that list. And instead I, so then I would write down everything I've done just so I can check it off so I can be like, I did get things done today. So I love the side by side lists. That's a really cool visual.
[00:10:40] Laura: I thought I was the only one that did that, that went back and said, let me write down so I can check it off.
[00:10:45] Sara: Right. I love it.
[00:10:47] Kim: Yeah, cause it can be so defeating, right? And, and, and all of our parts can get really depressed and upset and our inner critic can come out and be so mean to us when we think that we haven't gotten anything done, like, "Oh, I just wasted another day." When you didn't. No day is a waste. Even if you chose to nap, it's not a waste. Like we need that.
[00:11:10] Louise: Yeah. And you know, Kim, I really love this, this idea too. It's not that we're not focusing on a role or on a task. When you talk about busting open these silos. It's not that we're not focused on accomplishments or goals. It's that we're looking at it from a bird's eye view and looking at all of the roles that we play in all of the things that we do all at once. It's not, I'm just this person, right? I am just an executive or I'm just a mom or I'm, we're not just anything. We're all of it.
[00:11:49] Kim: Yeah. It's like taking each of those buckets and pouring it into a swimming pool. So, it's all together.
[00:11:55] Nikki: I have a big picture brain. If I try to compartmentalize my schedule, my brain is like, but all this is over here, but all this is over here, but all this is in this pocket. And if I don't know what I have to do over here, how do I know what I have to do here? And so I love the, To Do, and I call it the, To Done list. When I do it, because it just helps me feed that part of my brain that wants to see all of the things.
[00:12:21] Kim: Yeah, and it's so important. We are whole beings. We are not siloed beings. And the more we silo out our parts and especially as a working mom, and I know this impacts everybody, but especially as a working mom, we tend to silo ourselves even further.
[00:12:39] Kim: Like I can only be mom now and I can, like, we talk about changing hats and we're taught, you know, my clients are always talking about all the, all the plates they're spinning, all the balls in the air, all the, all the, you know, it's, it's all the stuff and it it's still considers all of it as these singular points.
[00:12:56] Kim: And while, they may be temporarily, you know, if I'm super focused on one thing, that's great. You know, I still have that ability to do it, but it doesn't mean the rest of it is all gone. It all still exists, and it needs to be cared for. And so that integrated living is really pulling all of those together and looking at them together and figuring out how to manage our days, our times with all of that in mind.
[00:13:25] Sara: It was interesting that earlier you talked about in quarantine and I feel like quarantine has shown us how integrated our lives actually are.
[00:13:33] Kim: Yeah.
[00:13:34] Sara: Cause yeah, like you're talking about like you're upstairs and you're working, and your daughter has to come up to ask you something. Well, you know, maybe when you're actually at the office, you can ignore it, right? It's different now, you know, all of it is integrated. And I think physically we're seeing that, you know, everything is kind of, I don't know, I just feel like it's a different feeling. I think when we go back to whatever the hell normal life is going to be after this, we'll notice that I just think more people might understand harmonious living.
[00:14:00] Kim: Well, there's a big part of me that doesn't want to go back to whatever normal was, because I don't think it's healthy.
[00:14:06] Sara: Yeah.
[00:14:07] Kim: I mean, the reality is it wasn't that I spent the eight hours at my job, not thinking about all the other things that she needed or dealt with. "Oh, I need to get my car taken care of. I need to go to the dentist. She needs to go to the dentist. I need to order something for the house. I need to go grocery shopping. I need to do my meal planning. I need to think about when am I next...." Like it's constant. And you can even hear my voice. How dit, dit, dit, dit, right? It gets, it's that rapid fire thing cause it never stops.
[00:14:34] Kim: And so, even if we're just sitting, doing one task, our brains are still processing all the other stuff that we have to do. And so, if we start bringing it in, we're actually creating more space in our brains to be more focused and to be more productive. Does that make sense?
[00:14:53] Nikki: Yeah, when you fight your brain, it just screams louder.
[00:14:58] Kim: Yeah, totally.
[00:14:59] Nikki: And so for me, when I'm trying to ignore something, it's just louder and bigger and bigger and louder until it's almost like an explosion, "Like fine. I'll just do it!" And then I get distracted.
[00:15:12] Laura: I would say that's a part, that's a part. We all know that ignoring them is never a good thing.
[00:15:18] Nikki: Ignoring when emotion comes up, when parts come up, when that little nagging voice in your head comes up, ignoring it is just going to make it louder. You either have to write it down, say, "I'll talk to you later." You have to do something right, to be able to move through it.
[00:15:34] Laura: It's certainly a better answer than just trying to ignore it. So, I have a question, Kim, I don't have kids, so I don't have that whole additional layer of complexity in my life is what I'm going to call it. For, because I know that that word is not adequate, but the thought if I were, if I were a mom and I had kids and I had all of my, all of my tasks in different places or all of my, To Do lists in different places, as it related to my job, to keeping the house to taking care of the kids. I'm thinking possibly that the thought of trying to put all those together would be overwhelming.
[00:16:10] Laura: How can you help people not feel overwhelmed as you're wanting them to look more holistically at their life?
[00:16:16] Kim: Yes. So, overwhelm is part of it, right? Where we start from overwhelm very often because we have so many different things in front of us and we don't always know how to focus our attention. So sometimes we very often we're already coming from a place of overwhelm. But, but absolutely true is, is pulling it all together can feel like a whole new level and it can, there can be a lot of resistance to actually looking at it that way. And so we take it in bite size pieces. It's not necessarily sitting down with all of their calendars at once. We work up to that, we have them play with that. So, it's not, if it's not something that's going to work for them, right?
[00:16:55] I Kim: f they are somebody who having it all in front of them feels scary, we're going to work with those feelings. And, and start to release some of that resistance before diving in and saying, "Okay, put it all together," because that would, that would just, that would be jarring.
[00:17:11] Laura: I love that you work with the resistance and the emotions that come up with that. I think that's, I think often with clients working with the resistance is probably something that we all do across the board, regardless of what our specialty is. And. I love that you work with them to figure out what's behind the resistance and to deal with the emotion that's coming up around it. So I like that.
[00:17:33] Kim: Thanks. Yeah. I described myself as pragmatically woo-woo. So, I, I will absolutely help with the logistics, the organization that, you know, help figure out all of that. I can feel really comfortable in a business setting. You know, I’ve been a business executive, so I understand all of that and can speak that language and walk that walk.
[00:17:55] Kim: But I will also take you to the the place where feelings, where we have those somatic experiences, where we start to unpack what the resistance is, what the fear is, what the feelings and emotions are coming up around it. And let you lean into that because that's where we're going to see the greatest shifts in our lives.
[00:18:14] Kim: Every time I start to get overwhelmed because I'm a human being, I get overwhelmed. I, you know, I have these ebbs and flows. I pull out my tools and my tools include, yes, getting all my lists in place, but it also includes doing some deep energy work. It involves working with my emotions. It involves working with my parts.
[00:18:33] Kim: So I think you have to, again, it's holistic, we're people, we're human beings,
[00:18:36] Nikki: But it's also having all of these different tools because what you need, one thing, one crisis, one emotion, when we break down isn't necessarily what you're going to need exactly next time. So, you know, maybe you like the smell of lavender in one day and the next day you're like, no, definitely not. So just having all of these different things, you can access really will serve you in the moment but knowing what those are is important.
[00:19:05] Kim: for sure, for sure.
[00:19:07] Louise: I love all these tools as well as this. You know, as we come out of overwhelm and we begin to see things more clearly that really this integrated living and this life is all about being in choice
[00:19:24] Kim: A hundred percent about intentional choice. We get to choose. We get to make our choices. We get to choose things all the time. It is not easy by any stretch of the imagination. I am the first person to tell you, none of this work is easy. It's hard work and it is ongoing for the rest of your life work. Like I just said, I, you know, a month ago I totally fell apart and it took me two weeks to pull myself out of it.
[00:19:50] Kim: But I had the tools and I made the choice and every day I made the choice to work on it. And I've gotten myself back to a much better place. And the next time I fall down, I will make a different choice. You know, we, that's what we have to do every time we have to make those choices.
[00:20:07] Nikki: Well, and even remembering that word "choice" can be hard sometimes. When you're feeling hopeless, when you're feeling challenged it's like, "Oh, there's so much happening around me. I don't know what to do." And when we tell ourselves we don't know what to do, our brain is like, yeah, we don't know what to do. We're stuck. It's not our fault. It's not our problem, which are here.
[00:20:25] Nikki: But when, I know for me, when I take a moment to say, "How can I be in choice here?" What can I do to change the situation, to remove myself to rest? What do I need here so that I am in choice? Because that's, what's empowering to me. That's what helps me walk through whatever is happening.
[00:20:43] Sara: I totally agree with that too. And I've always felt that a lot of times we make passive choices. We don't even realize that we're making choices. It's just like, this is the way I've always done it. And you forget when you wake up, you're like, "I have a choice to do this, this or this." I wonder if you can tell us more about how you would work with a client that way, Kim. When you have someone coming to you and they're totally overwhelmed and how do you introduce choice to them and, and, and using their choices to change their life?
[00:21:08] Kim: Yes, it's very much like the coach who worked with me is it's a simple question of, "Do you need to feel that way? Do you need to think that way?" So, if the thought is I should be behaving this way, because this is how I was raised.
[00:21:28] Kim: The simple question is, "Is that what you have to believe?" Is there another option? And very often just asking that simple question puts people back on their heels. They're like, "What? No, but I, I should believe this because this is how I was raised. I don't know any of them way to think." And you just, it's a simple, simple, curious question of, "But is there another way?"
[00:21:51] Kim: And there's no, there's no right or wrong, right? That's the really amazing and beautiful thing is we are all here on this earth to live the lives we choose to live, and we make unconscious choices every day, but we can totally choose differently.
[00:22:08] Sara: I completely agree with that. And I, I love the common theme we've had throughout our first couple episodes where we've talked about this like bite size pieces with movement and with your career and with your parts work and you know, now we're hearing it from you again. And I just love, like our common theme throughout is all the little parts are what make us whole. And I just, I love hearing it again in a different way, especially from a, for working moms. You know, I don't have kids either, and I couldn't imagine having to balance kids as well.
[00:22:35] Sara: And then having you say, well, you don't have to balance it, it just blends together. I just, I don't know. I just love it. And thank you for sharing all of this with us.
[00:22:43] Kim: Yeah. Well, and it's interesting that you talked about all of our parts, cause right they're all the best parts.
[00:22:47] Sara: Yep.
[00:22:47] Laura: Kim, I was going to say, I really want to circle back and honor that you were willing to share with us that you'd had a tough time.
[00:22:55] Laura: You know, that's not easy to admit to a bunch of listeners and I appreciate your willingness to be that vulnerable with us. And I also love that you mentioned that you have some tools that allow you to figure it out and how to move forward. And so I'm curious what did you realize, as you were struggling, that would help you, which of the tools work the best? How did you reach out for support? Can you share a little bit about what that process was like?
[00:23:22] Kim: Yeah, I'd be happy to thank you for asking. I deeply believe that those of us that have made those shifts, if we start talking about them, if we share them, which means sharing the, the, not so pretty parts of our lives and how we work through it, I think that, that it can be something that's encouraging to other people. I never want my story to be something that somebody, you know, measures themselves against. Cause that's unfair. Like I said before, each of us has our own lives. And so, for me, what I was called back into and I alluded to it a little bit earlier, was my energy work.
[00:23:58] Kim: So through meditation, doing Reiki and just really tuning into my energy body it, it allowed me, me to process through, and it was truly not pretty, but it was, you know, it was primal screams. It was asking my family to go out in the backyard so they couldn't hear me sobbing for as long as I needed to sob. It was turning on music that let me move my body in a very primal way that just moved the energy through. And so that was the first step for me, because for me, what was coming up was a lot of anger, a lot of anger. And I don't deal well with anger, either receiving it or putting it out into the world, but I really needed to process that anger.
[00:24:49] Kim: And so I used my energy body in that way to process it through and get to the other side. And then once I got to the other side, I had to start rebuilding. And creating some daily rituals around that has really helped me realign myself and allow my, allow me to be fully there for, for my clients, for my family, for myself, in a way that is, I'm going to use the word authentic, although I don't love that word, but that's really the only word that I could think of.
[00:25:20] Nikki: You need to invent a new word.
[00:25:22] Kim: I do.
[00:25:24] Nikki: I get like a little twitch.
[00:25:28] Laura: Why is that ladies? Why do you not? What's what's tell, tell me, what's making your twitch about that word.
[00:25:33] Nikki: For me, I feel like people use "authentic" in a way that isn't authentic.
[00:25:40] Kim: Exactly, exactly.
[00:25:42] Nikki: That is not what it is. And so, when I use it, I'm like Kim. I'm like, I don't like this word, but this is the word I'm using very mindfully right here.
[00:25:51] Kim: Yeah. Yeah. And it's usually, cause there really isn't another word, but it has, it has become such a catch phrase, you know, it's, it's so funny. Cause when I do, I talk about, like I said, I'm pragmatically woo-woo, right?
[00:26:03] Kim: I'll I'll talk to you, to death about the spreadsheets and, and, and data analysis and all of that good juicy stuff in life. And then I can talk to you about working with your energy body. And for me, even, even talking with you and sharing with our listeners, that there is that part of me, there is that quote unquote woo-woo part of me, the scariest part of my sharing it is that it feels like it's been popularized and it's something totally different for me. It's something very personal. And so, when I talk about what works for a client, it may or may not be energy work. They may think energy work is, is the craziest thing they've ever heard about.
[00:26:43] Kim: And that's fine. That's totally fine, but what is it for them that they can then re recenter themselves on, right? Where can they bring themselves back to the most authentic core part of themselves. Because again, it goes back to, we are all individuals on this earth, we are all human beings and we all deserve to respect ourselves for that.
[00:27:07] Kim: Like we respect everybody else or we should be. And I don't use should very often, but we really should be respecting other humans probably a lot more than a lot of humans are right now.
[00:27:18] Nikki: Well, I mean, I love that too, Kim, because I mean, this is why we're the kids in the back of the class talking behind our folders. Cause it's the same for me where it's like, I'm, I'm careful about how I talk about my spirituality and my woo-wooness. That's my new word of the day. Um, because it's so personal and it's so individual, and I'm also very respectful that other people's experiences are different than mine. So when I say I feel sad, I might experience that feeling physical feeling different than someone else.
[00:27:50] Nikki: And so I, try to be mindful when I'm talking about it and I think it's become I've erred on the side of overcaution with it because I want to make sure people understand what I'm meaning. And I can't ensure that, but it is such an important and fundamental part of who I am as a person, as a coach, as a human in the world.
[00:28:12] Nikki: And so I really appreciate you speaking to that just because it's different and not everybody consciously gets it. I feel like they get it on some level, but not always front of the mind level.
[00:28:24] Kim: So, one of my favorite questions to ask people is what is your spirit animal, or who is your spirit animal?
[00:28:30] Nikki: I can give you a quick answer, but we talked about this and it's all of them.
[00:28:34] Kim: Yeah. I love that about you Nikki, "They're all of them." Does anybody else have a spirit animal? Well, Sara, I think we think yours is a sloth, but yeah.
[00:28:44] Nikki: think she called it hers as sloth.
[00:28:46] Sara: Yeah. I said mine was a sloth, but it's actually a rhino.
[00:28:50] Kim: Oh, that's so cool.
[00:28:53] Nikki: I have a thing they're called the crash of rhino.
[00:28:56] Sara: I have a tattoo of a rhino on my side and I love her name is Rosie and it's a long story, but I love rhinos. That is my spirit animal.
[00:29:05] Nikki: That's awesome. I want to hear that story.
[00:29:06] Laura: Yeah, me too.
[00:29:07] Louise: How do you, how do you know what your spirit animal is?
[00:29:10] Laura: Thank you, Louise.
[00:29:14] Louise: I don't know what mine is. How do I find this out?
[00:29:16] Kim: So for me, it comes to me in a vision. To me, it is when I'm meditating and I'm all of a sudden visited by the either I can visually see it, or I can feel the energy or the feeling that feels like there's something there. So there is for me, I have several as well. So, I have an, a playful Otter that plays in front of me. I have an entire, I don't know what they're called a flock of flamingos. That, what are they called? What's a whole bunch of flamingos? I don't know. But then --
[00:29:48] Laura: A whole bunch of flamingos?
[00:29:49] Kim: It's a whole bunch of flamingos. So, I have a whole bunch of flamingos over to my right and they tend to kind of push me forward. They like do their dances and then if I'm not propelling myself forward, they kind of push me forward. I have an owl over my left shoulder, and I have a Hawk that guides me in front of me. So --
[00:30:05] Nikki: I have to go back because I Googled it. It's called a
[00:30:07] Sara: flamboyance of
[00:30:12] Nikki: flamboyance of flamingos.
[00:30:15] Laura: I love that!
[00:30:16] Kim: That feels appropriate.
[00:30:17] Nikki: It does. I read it and I started laughing. I'm like, oh yes, Kim, you have a flamboyance.
[00:30:23] Kim: Oh, I do have a flamboyance, I’m so excited.
[00:30:29] Sara: I asked Siri that too. And it's when I saw flamboyance, I just started laughing. I was like I need Kim to stop talking for a minute so I can talk.
[00:30:35] Nikki: I know I'm like, she's going to be so happy when she hears this.
[00:30:39] Sara: Not a flock.
[00:30:41] Nikki: Any group of birds can be a flock that's what Google has said, but specifically it is the flamboyance of flamingos.
[00:30:47] Kim: Thank you, Google and Siri, as well as Nikki and Sara for figuring that out. So, yeah. So, it's just something that comes to you or you feel a special affinity towards an animal and that their energy or their presence just brings you a little bit more comfort, a little bit more joy.
[00:31:04] Kim: So that's, it's just, it's one of those things. Stevie Nicks is my other spirit animal. So, there's that.
[00:31:09] Nikki: Yeah. Stacy London is my human spirit animal. So, I understand that.
[00:31:14] Louise: That is so funny.
[00:31:14] Sara: Mine is Pink. Mine is Pink
[00:31:16] Kim: Of course, it is.
[00:31:18] Louise: Um, I think, I think most days my spirit animal is a squirrel
[00:31:26] Laura: Squirrel, squirrel.
[00:31:26] Kim: Squirrel energy is pretty good though.
[00:31:27] Laura: Squirrel.
[00:31:28] Louise: Yeah. I love that.
[00:31:29] Nikki: Especially watching them torment my dog.
[00:31:36] Louise: I was just, you know, I wanted to just kind of speak into this space because one of the, as we talk about having these visions and these connections, as you were speaking Kim about bringing these tools and these resources to your clients and to our listeners too. Everyone that you interact with to your family or your daughter that I just had this really clear vision of you standing there with your hand out saying, "Come this way that you haven't come before and let's see what we can find together."
[00:32:14] Kim: Yeah, it's so true. Thank you, Louise. It is so true. I feel like with all, I want just say it with humanity. I mean, I guess I can't even pick, it's not clients. It's not family. It's it's it's everybody. It's humanity. I do feel like my hand is out and it's just, I've got you. That's really the message I've got you.
[00:32:32] Kim: You're going to be okay. I've got you.
[00:32:34] Nikki: Well, and even though we're in, in a COVID six feet away space, Louise described Kim as the human version of a hug. And so, I pictured you with both arms open going, come here, let me give you a snuggle.
[00:32:45] Kim: That's the second. But like, if they, if they're willing to take the hand, let's go all the way in for the hug.
[00:32:49] Nikki: That's right. COVID notwithstanding.
[00:32:53] Kim: Yeah. I'm really good at air hugs at this point.
[00:32:58] Nikki: But there's just something about a good cuddle with somebody who really knows how to hug and just hold you and be there with you. And that's one of the gifts of just being around Kim is you just leave, feeling hugged, even if it's via Zoom.
[00:33:12] Kim: Thank you.
[00:33:14] Louise: [So, Kim, I wanted to know as we kind of wrap up a little bit here today, if there was something that I should have asked you that I didn't know enough to ask.
[00:33:26] Kim: Well, it's so funny because it's like, there's a million things that you didn't ask because you didn't know to ask. And I don't, I wouldn't even know where to begin.
[00:33:34] Kim: I think, you know, it goes back to kind of what I've already said is that we're all humans. We all have this messy life that we're living. None of us are doing it perfectly. None of us, no matter what your Instagram or Facebook or whatever feed tells you about somebody else, nobody is living it perfectly.
[00:33:54] Kim: Nobody has their shit together. We're all struggling on some level. And if we can just see the humanity in each other, just a little more deeply, just a little more closely than we have an opportunity to really make this lifetime that we're here sparkle, absolutely sparkle and glitter and shine. And that's my hope for all of us.
[00:34:19] Kim: That's for everybody who's listening, but for everybody who's not listening is that we all have the opportunity to sparkle and glitter and shine, and I'm going to try really hard to not cry now.
[00:34:29] Louise: That's beautiful. Thank you. Yeah. Deep breath.
[00:34:35] Kim: Yeah
[00:34:37] Louise: So before we jump into the Lightning Round, I was wondering if you can tell our listeners what you have currently going on, what's maybe coming up for you and how they can reach out and connect with you by hand or by hug.
[00:34:51] Kim: Oh, I love that. Absolutely. So, coming up on September 10th, I have a, an online Virtual Visualization workshop helping us identify where we are, where we want to go and visualize a future for ourselves. And then you'll leave that with one or two action steps to send you in the right direction. We're not going to fix everything in the short workshop, but it gives you a chance to really dive into and play with visualization for your own future.
[00:35:20] Kim: And if you've never had an opportunity to do that, it's really empowering. And then on September 30th. I start my 12-week Balance Is Bullshit training program. This will be somewhat self-directed in that you can listen in your own time. Nothing will take more than five to 10 minutes a day because I know everybody's overwhelmed. But you'll also have an opportunity for once a month to do a visualization workshop with me, as well as the group coaching.
[00:35:47] Kim: One of the things that if you take part in the training program as well, that I will highly encourage you to do you is to make dark chocolate a really, really, really good friend of yours because the process of doing this, this deep inner work and working through letting go of the concept of balance and leaning into this harmonious life, you need a little chocolate on your side.
[00:36:09] Louise: I love that.
[00:36:10] Kim: And where they can find me. Yes.
[00:36:12] Louise: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:36:13] Kim: And you can find me at www.harmoniouslifecoach.com. You can find me on Instagram and Facebook at harmonious life coach as well. And you can find me on LinkedIn at Kim Romain.
[00:36:24] Louise: So if I wanted to sign up for your workshops or your training program, would I just reach out and connect with you on your website?
[00:36:31] Kim: Yes, you can go right to my website. All the information is there. I can also join my newsletter, which gives you 12 weeks of content as well towards releasing the idea of balance.
[00:36:43] Louise: Beautiful. I love that. Thank you.
[00:36:45] Kim: You're welcome.
[00:36:46] Louise: All right. So, the Lightning Round, here we go. Are you ready? Is everyone ready?
[00:36:51] Nikki: Yeah, where's the dun-dun-du-duh?
[00:36:57] Sara: I couldn't find the unmute button fast.
[00:37:01] Nikki: You got it. You pulled us through.
[00:37:03] Louise: All right. So here we go. Kim, what is the best part of the pizza?
[00:37:10] Kim: The crust.
[00:37:12] Sara: Oh, good God! I was just thinking ‘don't you dare say crust!’
[00:37:18] Kim: See, I love the cheese. Well, but it's too hard. I mean, I love, well actually, probably the best part. I'm going to take that back, but no, it is still the crust. It is still the crust because it's making the crust, it's making the pizza and I love, they're all hard for me. They're all. I, there's a reason why my daughter tells you that her favorite color is rainbow because none of us can make a freaking decision to save our lives. But no, it is. It's actually, it's making the pizza, but my favorite favorite part is actually making the dough. I love the feel of kneading the dough, so there's that.
[00:37:52] Louise: All right. Cool. All right. What's the best thing on your nightstand right now?
[00:37:59] Sara: Oh, wow. Glad you're answering that.
[00:38:05] Laura: After Dark, here we come.
[00:38:07] Nikki: I think she just did. She's in hysterics now.
[00:38:09] Kim: It's so funny. So, it's no like, yeah, it, it my nightstand is this pitifully small little thing that is toppling over with books, but the best thing on my nightstand right now is a roll of KT tape.
[00:38:25] Louise: All right. Not the answer I was expecting.
[00:38:28] Kim: I know!
[00:38:29] Nikki: With that laugh I thought it would be way different.
[00:38:31] Kim: Right? I am here to turn your world upside down.
[00:38:37] Louise: Sure are.
[00:38:38] Nikki: And it's funny in my head, I was, cause I was like, "Oh, for me. Kleenex." And then I was like, Oh, that is maybe the wrong answer too. But it's because my allergies are so bad that it's like, that is my most precious nightstand thing right now.
[00:38:50] Kim: I hear ya.
[00:38:51] Louise: Oh, I love it.
[00:38:52] Kim: Well, the second one on my nightstand, cause I can never just have one. The second-best thing on my nightstand. Are you ready? Is a highlighter.
[00:39:02] Nikki: I don't even know what to say to that.
[00:39:04] Sara: Do you draw on your husband's face while he's sleeping or something?
[00:39:07] Kim: That would be fun. But no -
[00:39:11] Nikki: His back!
[00:39:12] Kim: His back. I draw all sorts of things. No, no, no, no. I, well, because I have my, my toppling over books, so I need my highlighters so that I can cause some I don't highlight fiction, but like a lot of it is nonfiction and I need my highlighter.
[00:39:25] Louise: Alright. What. Is the best thing in your closet?
[00:39:31] Kim: Oh shit. Oh, I know the best thing in my closet is all of my artwork that I have nowhere to store anywhere else.
[00:39:44] Laura: Oh, that's sad.
[00:39:46] Kim: No, it's not sad. I have it. It's like, it's all there. It's trying to find a home, but there's like my house is packed with artwork.
[00:39:52] Nikki: Send something to me, I have walls.
[00:39:54] Kim: Okay, okay.
[00:39:56] Louise: All right. What is the best kind of holiday or vacation or whatever you want to call it? What is the best kind of vacation?
[00:40:03] Kim: I love holiday. Holiday is great.
[00:40:05] Sara: I was going to say Christmas, but...you're talking about vacations
[00:40:08] Kim: Well, not in my world.
[00:40:09] Sara: Oh, that's right. Sorry. Hanukkah. Hanukkah.
[00:40:13] Kim: The best part of a holiday or the best type of holiday?
[00:40:16] Louise: Yes.
[00:40:17] Kim: Okay. Well, I, I, cause I, we're not having that and this year. Thank you, COVID. It's any holiday, it would be awesome right now, but breathing fresh air. And being in beautiful spaces.
[00:40:35] Sara: You just made a difference, everybody else?
[00:40:37] Nikki: Yeah. did everyone else just breath?
[00:40:40] Louise: Totally there.
[00:40:41] Kim: What I was picturing was last year, we did a nearly cross-country road trip and we did six national parks, including Yellowstone and the grand Tetons. And I was picturing my most, the most beautiful place where we were on the Tetons, where I could just happily be for the rest of my days.
[00:40:57] Louise: Oh, lovely. I love that. Alright. And our last question here in the Lightning Round, what's the best part of your story?
[00:41:07] Kim: Mm Hmm. That I'm still writing it.
[00:41:11] Sara: I love that.
[00:41:13] Kim: And I don't need a second one for that
[00:41:14] Nikki: I was going to say, "Aw, that was a beautiful answer," and then we all wait for Kim to say more.
[00:41:21] Louise: And there is no more.
[00:41:23] Nikki: But it was so lovely. It doesn't need anything else.
[00:41:26] Louise: Well, and I believe that is just a perfect way to wrap up our episode here today. And I want to thank Kim and everyone for really stepping into our space today. And I'm sending all my love and gratitude to my cohosts, Nikki, Sara, and Laura, and a great big squishy hug to Kim.
[00:41:47] Louise: Thank you for a beautiful conversation today. And most of all, I want to thank you listener for taking the time today to be very intentional here, around making time for yourself and connecting with us. Check out the show notes for all the links and the content mentioned here today. Thank you.
[00:42:05] Kim: Thanks for joining us today for another episode of The Best Parts Podcast. If you like what you heard today, we would love it if you would share this podcast on social media or with anyone else you think would enjoy it. After all sharing is caring. And be sure to leave a rating or review on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to podcasts, as it helps others find us. If you'd like to connect with us, you can find us on Instagram @thebestparts.com or head over to our website at thebestparts.podbean.com.
[00:42:36] Kim: Thanks for listening. And until next time, remember that all of the parts are the best parts.
Tuesday Aug 18, 2020
Tuesday Aug 18, 2020
Welcome to this episode of The Best Parts Podcast. We are excited you are here with us as we have our very own Laura Lively here to share her journey and expertise with us. Laura is an Internal Family Systems practitioner and Life Coach specializing in Parts Work. Laura's journey into parts work came from her experience in an online food program where she lost over half of her body weight. It was this first experience with parts work that affected her so deeply that she became a licensed IFS practitioner and has facilitated over 350 sessions with clients since. Tune in to this week’s episode to hear more about how Laura and parts work blew my mind. I'm excited for all of you to learn more as well. Welcome Laura.
You can find Laura at Lauralively.com
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BestParts Podcast - Ep 4 - Laura Lively - Parts Are Parts
[00:00:00] Laura: Everyone would be better off if they understood they had parts.
[00:00:03] Nikki: And I was super confused.
[00:00:05] Sara: I'm good friends with my devil.
[00:00:08] Kim: And just because I'm a little kid doesn't mean you shouldn't hear me.
[00:00:10] Louise: I'm standing in front of the fridge, eating my weight in cheese.
[00:00:21] Laura: Hi, I'm Laura.
[00:00:22] Sara: Hi, I'm Sara
[00:00:24] Kim: And I'm Kim.
[00:00:25] Nikki: This is Nikki
[00:00:26] Louise: And I'm Louise.
[00:00:28] Kim: Hi, and welcome to The Best Parts Podcast, where we invite you to pull up a chair and think about your best parts, which are all your parts.
[00:00:38] Sara: Hello, and welcome to this episode of The Best Parts Podcast. We are excited you are here with us as we have our very own Laura Lively here to share her journey and expertise with us.
[00:00:49] Sara: Laura is an Internal Family Systems practitioner and Life Coach specializing in Parts Work Laura's journey into parts work came from her experience in an online food program where she lost over half of her body weight. It was this first experience with parts work that affected her so deeply that she became a licensed IFS practitioner and has facilitated over 350 sessions with clients since.
[00:01:12] Sara: I, for one did not know that much about parts work until working with Laura, and I found it fascinating. Stay tuned to hear more about how Laura and parts work blew my mind. I'm excited for all of you to learn more as well. Welcome Laura.
[00:01:24] Laura: Thanks Sara.
[00:01:25] Sara: So good to have you have you here. I am. I'm so excited about parts work and what you've brought to this space for us.
[00:01:31] Sara: And I just, for one, can't wait to learn even more, but before we start, uh, the discussion around parts work, I would love first to talk about your health journey that you embarked on back in 2016. What sparked the decision to focus on your health back then?
[00:01:45] Laura: Yeah, two things. I was fat shamed on a plane and --
[00:01:48] Sara: I'm sorry.
[00:01:49] Laura: Yeah, it really sucked. The guy tells the flight attendant. "I won't fit next to her," and the jackass fit, you know, he fit just fine, I'm just saying. And it was very painful as you might imagine. I had just topped the scale at 300 pounds, which was a number I'd never seen before.
[00:02:09] Laura: My weight loss story is I've been overweight since I was three years old. I'm, 54. I just turned 54. This is the summer of 2020, summer of COVID. And I had, I've been overweight my entire life. I've never been in a right size body as an adult. And I had been on every diet in the world. Like, has anyone, anybody here ever been on the diet?
[00:02:29] Sara: Never!
[00:02:30] Kim: What's a diet? What is this word?
[00:02:34] Laura: Or 20? Or 20 diets?
[00:02:38] Nikki: That makes more sense to me.
[00:02:39] Kim: There we go.
[00:02:40] Laura: Okay. Yeah. So, I tried every diet in the world twice and I, I just, I could lose actually, no, actually I started to say some people say their champion losers in terms of being able to take the weight off, but not keeping it off. And I guess that was kind of my story. I had lost a hundred pounds once when I was 18, I lost 80 something when I was in my thirties, but I'd never seen 300 pounds.
[00:03:03] Laura: When I was 18, I weighed 297.75. That was the first time that I went to Weight Watchers and you know, fast forward I had tried exercise to keep it off. I used to Spin, like five days a week at the gym. I had a trainer that was the last, most successful time. I tried every diet in the world twice and it just didn't, I just couldn't do it.
[00:03:23] Laura: I would get down to a point and then I would panic and put it all back on. And generally, it was around the 170 mark. I would get to about 170 and I, I would just panic and put the weight back on. So, after being fat shamed, after weighing 300 pounds, I, I was desperate until I found this online eating program.
[00:03:44] Laura: And you know, one of the things that they built because I've sat, sat shoulder to shoulder with Weight Watchers for years, like in a chair, fat shoulder to fat shoulder and I never had any community with them. I never knew who they were. But this online eating program, they actually built community, which is, I know what's really important to us here, right? That's one of the reasons we're doing this podcast.
[00:04:05] Sara: Absolutely. And it sounds like you've tried so many different diets or weight loss programs and that word "community" and "finding community" is a big difference in this online eating program. Is that right?
[00:04:17] Laura: Yeah. That's one of them. The other thing that they, they did was about the time I happened to start it, they introduced parts work.
[00:04:25] Laura: They introduced Internal Family Systems into their program, and that was a game changer. And I know we all here have had some exposure to parts work, but for our listeners who maybe have not heard of it, I'd like to just give you a little bit of background. So just to give you an example, you know, the typical angel and devil on your shoulder, you know what I'm talking about?
[00:04:45] Sara: I'm good friends with my devil.
[00:04:48] Nikki: I'm friends with both of them.
[00:04:50] Laura: Right. So, on one hand, there's this little devil saying, "I want a cookie. I want a cookie." And on the other hand, the angel's like, "No, no, no, you don't need a cookie. Your pants are already too tight. You don't need a cookie." And then a little devil's like "I want the cookie. I want the cookie." Well, those are different parts of us. And they, you know, they have seemingly different agendas. One wants a sugar hit and the other one's worried about your weight or your clothes fitting properly. And what is interesting that I've learned in parts work is that both of these parts, the little Cookie Monster and the Clothes Monitor, they want the same thing they're actually trying to help you. And so I'm going to ask you guys, how do you think the Cookie Monster is trying to help me?
[00:05:29] Kim: Joy, happiness.
[00:05:31] Laura: Right, Kim. That's exactly right. It wants to help me feel good. Sugar's a great rush.
[00:05:36] Nikki: Well, and, it's there is a service that sugar provides. I know it's, you know, it's addictive, but it does provide a service to your body.
[00:05:44] Sara: The Cookie Monster, I think it's that cue, routine, reward. And the cue is some sort of stress Cookie Monster comes in and says, here's a cookie and you're you get your immediate reward. It's just the long-term reward isn't there necessarily. My devil is now a Cookie Monster.
[00:06:00] Laura: So, the type of parts work I do, and like Sara mentioned at the top was Internal Family Systems and we believe that all of our parts are welcome. That we're never trying to get rid of parts. And can you see how people, people believe that getting rid of the Cookie Monster would be helpful?
[00:06:17] Sara: Absolutely.
[00:06:18] Louise: Well, Laura, that's really interesting when you define it, like the Cookie Monster, because you know, many of the diet programs that I follow it's like you don't welcome that Cookie Monster into your life, right?
[00:06:31] Louise: Like you're, you're cutting them out. You're you're stuffing them down. You're, well, literally stuffing him down. So, it's, it's really interesting. That's, it's, it's not about pushing away. It's about understanding and actually welcoming and knowing what the deeper intention is.
[00:06:54] Laura: Right, right. Yeah. And that is one of the things that's really different is we're not trying to kick these parts to the curb. We want to understand them better. Another point I want to make about parts work is we are more than just a big bag of parts. At our core, we have Self energy and that is the place with, in all of us where we are calm and creative and caring and curious. And this is the place where we would like to lead from. And that's the, that's the goal.
[00:07:24] Laura: The parts work that I do is to get you to be able to lead from that Self energy. And so Dick Schwartz, who's the founder of IFS, he has this whole list of, of qualities of ourselves that you learn to lead from your Self and the parts, who've been trying to lead your life all this time, they will relax back and allow you to lead once they know you're there. And that's why the relationship building is so important. So instead of trying to shove them away or kick them to the curb, we do relationship building. I always say to my clients, it's a little bit like trying to build relationships with neglected children. Because these parts have been stuffed down.
[00:08:01] Laura: They have been shoved away and they're a little skeptical. And so it just takes, it takes time. It takes time for them to learn to trust us.
[00:08:10] Sara: Laura, I would love to talk about how you work with parts, work with your clients. But first if it's okay. I want to circle back to the online eating program, and I want to know how did they introduce part's work there and what was it that grabbed you so deeply that you've turned this into a huge part of your life?
[00:08:26] Laura: So, as we've talked about it, it's an online eating program, but they do -- not in the year COVID, but in normal years they do once a year, there's an opportunity to do get together in a huge arena. And they introduced this concept, kind of like I've just introduced it to you, to a group of, I don't know, 800 people, 500 people.
[00:08:48] Laura: And for me it resonated so much. It was almost like it clicked immediately. As they explained this idea of a Cookie Monster and the Clothes Monitor. I had had a situation a few months before I went to this live event. My husband is the most loving, amazing Zen guy ever. And one day I lost my shit and I'm flying off the handle at him. I'm yelling, I'm slamming my wrists down on a hard-Walnut dresser, which hurt by the way. And I'm yelling at him and then almost immediately I'm berating myself. "What the hell is wrong with you? Are you nuts? Ray's the nicest guy in the universe. What the hell is the matter with you?" I mean, can anybody else relate to anybody else ever flown off the handle at somebody?
[00:09:35] Kim: Maybe once or twice. That's it. Very rare.
[00:09:38] Louise: This week? Yeah.
[00:09:40] Laura: Maybe this morning? So when that happened, you know, I'm like, "What the hell is wrong with you?" And I really, I thought I was crazy. But what I got in that first presentation about parts work was that "No, Laura, you are not crazy." There is a part of you that was triggered. And then there was a part well, it was totally dismayed that I yelled at my husband and a third part that was criticizing me. Anybody else have an inner critic?
[00:10:09] Sara: Oh yes.
[00:10:10] Laura: Yeah, I would wager unless you're a sociopath, everyone has a critic, an inner critic or two. But what that, what that did for me was, I mean, it just suddenly made sense. No, Laura was not crazy in her totality, right? So, it was just a part of her that was triggered. There was a part of me that got triggered and that felt like it opened up spaciousness in my body actually. I, I had this, this sigh of relief that I wasn't crazy. That there was just a part that got triggered and somehow that was so freeing to me and, and I, I thought even then I want to get trained in this. So it was almost immediate. I was like this knowing is this sense of knowing, oh my God, this is for me.
[00:10:51] Sara: Such a beautiful story. And I'm well, you don't ever want to have what happened to you in 2016 on the plane. Uh, look what it's led, led you to? And just for someone who cares deeply about you, I want to say how awesome is this, that you've taken some hurt and pain and turned it into something beautiful. So I wanted to shift to parts work with your clients and, and I'm curious how you introduce parts work to your clients and how, how do you work with your parts? Cause you've talked a lot about there's the Cookie Monster and the Clothes Monitor and you know, the angel and the devil. So we know that they're there, but what do we do with them?
[00:11:31] Laura: I do kind of similarly to what I just did with you guys, right? Because almost everybody has this at least a duality in their head. You know, I could have given you any number of examples, the alarm went off this morning and a part was like, "No, no, no, no, no, no. Let's just lay here." And another part was like, "Get up. We're getting interviewed today. Woo! Let's get going." I mean, so there's almost always these competing thoughts in our heads, right?
[00:11:54] Sara: I noticed your competing parts have very different voices.
[00:11:59] Kim: And that was really, really cool. I think you can actually hear them. It was cool.
[00:12:04] Laura: That's funny. So, I introduced them a little bit like he did with you guys. I use some examples and say, "Does this resonate with you?" I often can pick it up in my coaching clients. One will say, "I really need to get this content done for my website, but I don't want to do. It every time we get close to doing it, I ended up sitting and watching Netflix." So, my parts detector says, "Oh, so there's a part of you that would like to actually get the content onto your website. But then you have another part that wants to sit and watch Netflix. Are you interested in finding out why that part wants to watch Netflix?" So, I learned to distinguish parts and then, if they're open, not everybody's open to parts work, but I think the whole world would be better off if they understood they had parts. So that's kind of how I introduce it. It's whether it comes up organically in a conversation with, with a coaching client or if they come to me because they are aware that they have parts and want to figure out how to better live their lives and actually get, get a bead on their parts.
[00:13:07] Laura: And so one of my favorite things to witness with a client is that they start having more inner peace, once they start befriending these parts. And if they're trying to kick them to a curb, they become friends with them, and they can see the benefit. All parts are trying to help us and all of these parts bring strengths to the table.
[00:13:27] Laura: And if we can learn to honor them, instead of trying to shove them away, then we become a wholer person, we become a more, a well-rounded, happier person. And what I do love most about parts work is it's a skillset that most people can learn to use for themselves. I'm not about feeding people a fish. I want to teach them the skill set.
[00:13:49] Laura: I want to teach them to fish. I want to teach them the skillset. And it's a skillset that can be learned and just like any muscle, Sara, it has to be strengthened, but I want to give them that ability to be able to go on their way and manage their parts for themselves and learn how to live in that Self energy the majority of the time. Everyone would be better off if they understood they had parts.
[00:14:14] Louise: Often times, I believe that we get into this place with ourselves, with this relationship we have with ourselves, and it feels like a competition. So you mentioned the angel and the devil. But I think that there's so many other analogies that kind of can fit into that. The working versus the playing, all of those things that always feels like there are these pieces of me that are competing for my time or my energy. And it's one or the other, either sitting here working or I'm outside playing. I'm either keeping my health as a priority, or I'm standing in front of the fridge eating my weight in cheese, because I love cheese.
[00:15:09] Sara: Oh my God. Yes. Cheese,
[00:15:10] Kim: Cheese, for sure cheese,
[00:15:12] Sara: Every day.
[00:15:13] Louise: It's really interesting that it feels always like a competition, it's one or the other, but what I'm really hearing from you and I, I bring it into a little bit into my practice as well with NLP is that it's not, not an "or" it's an, "and."
[00:15:32] Laura: I agree with you, Louise. It's it definitely can be, “yes, and." And the other, and its definitely parts work is a little more nuanced than the way I presented the angel and devil. And I actually use, the analogy of Friends, the TV show. There seems to be this core group of parts that we see all the time, just like Rachel and Monica, et cetera.
[00:15:51] Laura: And then we have backup parts or parts that are recurring guest stars, like Gunther the, the coffee guy. Like we don't see him every show, but we see him quite often. And then you have guest stars that you never see again, right? You see them in one and done.
[00:16:11] Sara: Like Brad Pitt
[00:16:12] Laura: Parts are like that, right?
[00:16:12] Sara: Brad Pitt came in one time, that was awesome.
[00:16:16] Laura: Hugh Laurie was there. Yeah. Okay. Well, let's not it off on the Friends thing, but I use that analogy in the course I teach that our parts, and what you said is so true, Louise. Sometimes they do get into what IFS calls polarities where it feels like it's a tug of war between two of them. And generally, what happens is once you start talking to them, even once they start to realize that they're both trying to help you, they can relax.
[00:16:40] Laura: And when they relax, then your Self can step in and actually make the best decision about, do I want to stand here and eat cheese all day? Or do I want to go for a run, or do I want to do something completely different? One of the things I tell my clients and this, this is certainly true of my parts, my parts love choices. If I will give them a choice, "You can do this or that. What would you prefer to do?" And then they'll choose. They love that. They love having the choice. I don't know why the other thing, um, sometimes it's not just a tug of war. They can also have alliances. They'll become friends with one another.
[00:17:16] Laura: And the next thing you know, they're, they've ganged up on another part. The reason this is called Internal Family Systems is it's based on an approach in psychology called Family Systems. And they've taken, they've taken the, you know, what happens in a family dynamic situation. Dick Schwartz noticed it was happening internally with his clients.
[00:17:35] Kim: It's so interesting that you're saying that Laura, because, so when I was introduced to parts work by my therapist, it was so interesting because the first time I kind of sat down with her and we talked about, "Okay, let's let's see, see what parts show up."
[00:17:52] Kim: I don't remember what question she asked to get us to do that. But I remember going inside and I had this vision. And for years, it was this vision of when I would sit down with my parts, we were all around a conference table. Like they would all show up and I could visually see the alliances that you were talking about. And there were times when, you know, one part would throw something across the table at another part. I mean, it was hysterical to watch. When the movie Inside Out came out, I was so excited because I was like, "Oh my God, those are my parts on screen!"
[00:18:25] Laura: Right? Right.
[00:18:29] Kim: So I'm curious, I'd love to have a better sense of how do you see that working for your clients? What are the topics, what are the things that you help them with with their parts work?
[00:18:39] Laura: Kim, I'm so glad you asked! I believe the whole world would be better off if they understood they had parts. So that's pretty inclusive, right? So, yes, I think that there is really no topic that parts work cannot be beneficial for. I helped my sister and her work situation with parts work. It's good for people who are entrepreneurs.
[00:19:01] Laura: "There's only so many ways to be human." That's a quote from my sister. There's only so many ways to be human. And we all have that same insecurities. That was one of the things that really blew my mind. When I first started doing this work was realizing we all have the same insecurities and they're all the things that are holding us back.
[00:19:19] Laura: And it doesn't matter if we're talking about weight loss or becoming an entrepreneur or figuring out a sticky dynamic in a corporate situation. It doesn't really matter. There's nothing that this cannot help with. You know, getting annoyed with your husband, getting annoyed with your wife. It doesn't matter.
[00:19:37] Laura: There is by knowing your own parts and learning to work with them because who do we all know? Right. And we all know the coaches, we can't change anybody else's behavior. All we can do is change how we react to their behavior, right? So by learning which parts of mine get triggered I can then work with, with those parts to understand what are their concerns.
[00:20:01] Kim: Yeah. I love that.
[00:20:02] Laura: [00:20:02] I think it works in anything. I think it works in anything. I think I have the Holy Grail.
[00:20:06] Kim: I think you do too.
[00:20:08] Laura: I would love to actually to hear about some of you guy's parts work.
[00:20:13] Sara: Yeah. I wanted to ask Nikki about when she first heard about parts work. Cause her and I were talking about this the other day and I would love to hear about that.
[00:20:21] Nikki: Yeah. The first time I heard about parts work was actually at our retreat, where we all met, when Kim and Laura were talking about it, I'd never heard of it. I didn't even know it was a thing and they were talking about it. And I was super confused because I was like, Family Systems? Are they like family counselors? How do they know what this is?
[00:20:42] Nikki: I don't. I don't get it and they're talking about parts and then I was okay, is this a good thing or bad thing? I couldn't tell because it was just so unfamiliar to me. So, after like eavesdropping on their conversation, because I was sitting right next to them, it kind of started getting unpacked.
[00:20:58] Nikki: And then I did a session with Laura. I was having a really hard time and I don't even remember with what anymore. And we did parts work together and I was blown away because after that hour together, it was something huge shifted. There was peace. It was like communication opened up in me just by recognizing, I don't remember if it was one part or a couple parts at that time and releasing some tension just from acknowledging it because. I know we've said it a few times but trying to shut it down or shut it off or run away from it or pretend it's not there just makes it louder. It increases the tension. It makes things harder.
[00:21:38] Kim: Yeah.
[00:21:39] Sara: I so agree with that. And I love how Kim earlier talked about the conference table because. Uh, like I said earlier, I wanted to share with you how parts work blew my mind.
[00:21:51] Sara: I had a session set up with Laura, and honestly, I always thought there was just one inner critic and it's my mom and I realized I have seven of them, but then I have seven parts that are balancing my inner critic. And I mean, I was in tears and by the end of that hour, Laura says to me, "I know where you're at. You're totally spent. Enjoy this moment." And it was just like, I couldn't even believe what I had just experienced, just walking into a conference room and seeing that there's not just my like angel and devil right? There's all of these things. And it was exactly what Nikki just said. Just identifying that was so huge. And then we let two of my parts talk and have a conversation and it was just, it was beautiful.
[00:22:36] Nikki: Well didn't you say you were like wiped out? Exhausted?
[00:22:39] Sara: Oh yeah. I needed a break. I think I took a nap.
[00:22:44] Kim: It can be totally exhausting. And I find it exhilarating when you get parts to speak with each other and how parts can layer on top of each other. So, I've recently been working with, I found this part that was almost a shield. It had created almost this shield and I, and I thought that was the part that I was supposed to be working with. And then I, all of a sudden realized that the Shield was like, "Nope, I can step aside because who you really want to talk to is over here." And it was like this, it was a part of my Inner Child that I had never met before. Who all she wanted to do is have this temper tantrum, but had been really, you know, kept calm? The Shield was to keep her calm.
[00:23:23] Kim: So it was this really interesting opportunity for this little Inner Child that wanted to have this temper tantrum to have this opportunity to speak with this more shielded part, this more protective part and say, "I need you to actually give me a little bit of space, because what I have to say is really important. And just because I'm a little kid doesn't mean you shouldn't hear me." And it was fascinating to be able to go through that process. And, you know, and I've done that with lots of different parts, but just most recently that it to have them come together in that way. I mean, it's so powerful and I agree with you, Laura. It is the Holy Grail. And if something that, if people haven't heard about, they need to learn more about, and they need to, to get on this. Cause its pretty amazing stuff.
[00:24:10] Laura: I wanna to ask, I want to ask Louise about NLP because I know, so let me say this. There are multiple types of parts work and one of them is Focusing. So there's, there's Internal Family Systems there's Focusing and then NLP does some, so Louise, can you tell us a little bit about the NLP take on parts work?
[00:24:28] Louise: Well, yeah, it's, it's really similar, like as right. Cause it is about parts. NLP focuses, Neuro Linguistic Programming. It focuses a little bit more on really, congruency, right. Bringing those things that feel like they're competing or feel like they're opposite into alignment and recognizing that the intention is really the same. That we're all on the same bus going in the same direction towards the same goal. And it's more about the "and," and less about the, "or." And that's, that's kind of how I explain it with, with parts. But it's, it's really similar. It's, it's understanding that there's these pieces of us that sometimes veer off and try to go in a different way, or we think they're going in a different way. And we, we forget that it's really well, like I said, we're all on the same bus. With NLP, I think just the view is a little bit different in that unconsciously we have the same intention. So, it's really about kind of tapping into that and just pulling that a little bit more to the forefront so that you can examine it and become more in alignment with yourself. So, it is really the same though. It's it's understanding that at the end of the day, every piece of you is working towards the, the very best. And we're always doing the very best that we can do with the information that we have on hand. And the more we learn about the pieces of us, the more we become whole.
[00:26:26] Laura: Right.
[00:26:27] Kim: It's almost like it's the best parts.
[00:26:31] Nikki: All the parts are the best parts.
[00:26:34] Kim: I'm just saying.
[00:26:36] Sara: Louise, I love the bus analogy and I, I earlier Laura talked about the goal is to get to your core and all the four, the C's I wrote down, calm, creative, caring, curious, like the goal is to get there. So, I imagine the goal is that the bus driver is the core and all the parts are sitting and having conversations.
[00:26:59] Laura: Amen! Yeah. That's at least it is an IFS we use that same analogy, a similar analogy where if your parts are driving the bus, there there's chaos, right? Cause they're really generally they're younger and they're they're what you want is you want, you want Self driving the bus and the little parts, all strapped in the backseat, like calm and happy. Yeah.
[00:27:21] Louise: Yeah. And its funny, you guys talk about like sitting around a conference table and it's like, nope, I'm on a bus. I'm on a big yellow school bus and it is full of rowdy little shitheads. I know that, you know, that bus driver, I don't know. I had one that driver that's so mean and she just yells, "SIT DOWN!!" Right? Like that's, that's like that sometimes my bus driver and then there's kids jumping in, pulling each other's hair and trying to, and sometimes the kids are driving the bus. Sometimes the kids are so distracting, I don't know where I'm going. Sometimes that everybody is calm and quiet singing the same song, "the wheels on the bus."
[00:28:16] Kim: I was going to say a little kumbaya. What's going on?
[00:28:19] Louise: Sometimes. It's like that. Other times it's chaos, but that’s okay.
[00:28:24] Laura: Okay, Louise, you need to do some... I can fix that.
[00:28:29] Nikki: The bus analogy is funny to me too, because the only for one year at elementary school, and I remember it so vividly, we had a bus driver that was amazing. So amazing that you know, the cool kids who always want to sit in the back of the bus, they fought for the front seat because they wanted to be near her. And looking back on it now it's because she would talk to the kids like they were people, she was curious about them. She would remember things. And so instead of the back of the bus being where everybody wanted to try to go and fit in. Literally the front seats were the Primo seats to be on and she would play like cool music and really just be there for all of the kids on the bus.
[00:29:09] Nikki: There was no fighting. I don't remember anybody getting in trouble that year because everybody was straining to listen to her. Everybody wanted to participate and be involved. And so, when Louise is talking about her bus, like I'm seeing kids, it's hanging from the ceiling and like throwing spitballs and, you know, that's kind of the norm when we think of riding on the bus. But I have this, I feel like it's kind of a unique experience with watching a bus driver who's paying attention to her kids and safely driving the bus mind you there's, it wasn't like she was hanging out with us in the back or anything, but safely driving the bus and getting us all home to home or school. But really being there for the kids too, and how different that year was. And I couldn't tell you any other year of being on the bus, you know, cause they all blend together, but that one was so unique and so cool that I really get this analogy because I can see the contrast there.
[00:29:59] Sara: That is awesome. Well, Laura, I have an exciting Lightning Round to get to, but before we get there, I wanted to know, is there anything that we haven't talked about or anything that the four of us haven't asked you that we should have?
[00:30:12] Laura: I think I wanna, I do want to go back and circle back to you, you saw a table. Kim saw a table, uh, Louise has a bus. There is no wrong way to do parts work. A lot of people are visual, and they can really see their parts. I do tend to hear mine, which may be why when I speak them aloud, they have different voices. There's no wrong way to do parts work and everybody can do parts work. And then the other thing I want to say is parts really want two things. I'm not a tattoo girl but if I were, I would have a parts work tattoo that said “Parts want two things. They want to be acknowledged and appreciated." And if you can do those two things, they will start to relax and allow you to drive the bus, as opposed to them driving the bus.
[00:30:57] Sara: Oh, I love that. And who doesn't want to be acknowledged and appreciated?
[00:31:02] Nikki: I was thinking the same thing.
[00:31:04] Kim: To be seen and to be heard.
[00:31:06] Sara: Yeah.
[00:31:06] Laura: To be seen and to be heard.
[00:31:08] Sara: So, if anyone wants to work with you, Laura, where can we find you?
[00:31:13] Laura: Lauralively.com is the best place.
[00:31:16] Sara: All right, guys, are you ready for the Lightning Round?
[00:31:20] Sara: I want to focus on parts today in the Lightning Round, since it makes sense. Laura, you are self-described as three cats away from being a crazy cat lady. So, what is the best part of being a cat owner?
[00:31:35] Laura: Oh gosh. What is the best part of being a cat owner? It's actually watching how different each cat is. They each have their own little personality and I just love them. I love getting to see the variety. My husband was not a cat - I know this was to supposed to be Lightening Round - my husband was not a cat person. And so, he had this theory that all cats were the same. Oh no. All of our cats are so, so different.
[00:32:01] Kim: It's almost like cats are parts.
[00:32:03] Sara: Right? We're not on video, but when we are on video, usually a cat is walking across your computer.
[00:32:10] Laura: True story.
[00:32:12] Nikki: I'll see at least one tail every time.
[00:32:14] Sara: Yep. Alright. Number two. The best part of parasailing, is it going up or coming down?
[00:32:21] Laura: Going up.
[00:32:22] Nikki: Is Kim biting her nails right now?
[00:32:24] Kim: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. The best part of parasailing is waving at all of you.
[00:32:30] Nikki: From the boat?
[00:32:30] Kim: As as I'm on the boat, you know, just putting my feet up, having a good day.
[00:32:35] Sara: All right. Number three. The best thing to come out of Oklahoma is that the yield sign, the electric guitar or Carrie Underwood. Yep, what’s the best one?
[00:32:46] Kim: I can't believe that the yield sign came from Oklahoma.
[00:32:50] Nikki: I can, they didn't want to stop. So, they're like, how can we make this work for us
[00:32:55] Laura: I have so many parts running through my head.... whew. Oh my gosh. Yeah. I have so many parts that have so many different answers right now. I'm just going to answer the question. Carrie Underwood.
[00:33:07] Kim: Good one.
[00:33:08] Sara: Agreed. Number four, the best part of realizing that you and I are not actually afraid of each other?
[00:33:16] Laura: Oh, I wish we'd had time to talk about that because you're like, well, everything's the best part of that because I love you. So that's all good.
[00:33:25] Sara: We can quickly say when Laura and I first met each other, we were both scared to death each other, and now we're like, "Oh, we're both just big Teddy bears and we're fine."
[00:33:33] Laura: That's right.
[00:33:34] Sara: Alright. Out of all of your parts, which one is the part you like talking to the most?
[00:33:40] Laura: Oh my gosh. My Slytherin part. My Slytherin is a Harry Potter part I even have a tee shirt for him. And I also have a, I have a, a snake bracelet, gosh, from one of those high end crystal places that I Swikorsky? Sikorsky? I don't know how to say it.
[00:34:02] Nikki: Swarovski?
[00:34:04] Laura: Okay. Sikorsky is a helicopter manufacturer, but okay. Yeah, I love my Slytherin part, it is always thinking, thinking, thinking. It's always trying to figure out how can we do this, or how could we monetize that? Or how can we help other people? I mean, so it's, it's, it's. It's cunning. It's ambitious. It's I'll, I'll take a picture of a tee shirt and put it on our Facebook page because yeah, that's my favorite part. I love that part because it's so much fun and it can, this is the other thing about parts work is that I can go to it and have it help me be creative when I need to shift my emotions when I need to shift into a better place. I can use that part to help pull me out of a sad place. And that's one of the best things about parts are that we don't have time to talk about is how you learn to lean on the strengths of your parts so that you can live a better life.
[00:35:03] Sara: Awesome. I have one more to finish off here, Laura.
[00:35:06] Laura: Okay.
[00:35:07] Sara: The best part of being on The Best Parts?
[00:35:11] Laura: Having a podcast was a dream of mine for 2020. It wasn't just a dream, it was a goal. And so, the best part is that I got to fulfill that goal and I got to spend so much fabulous time with you guys. Cause I love you all very much.
[00:35:26] Sara: Yay. We love you. You too, Laura. All right. That brings us to the end of our episode. Thank you everyone for pulling up a chair and joining us today. Until next time, remember all the parts are the best parts.
Tuesday Aug 11, 2020
Tuesday Aug 11, 2020
Tune in this week as we talk to our resident Career Engagement and Pivot Planner, Louise Neil where she shares the importance of finding work you love. She works with introverted entrepreneurs and business leaders to empower and instill courage, partnering with them to overcome the blocks that hold them back from living their best lives. She’ll share a tip with you on how to easily track if your work lights you up.
You can find Louise here:
louiseneil.com on the web
@mylif.project on Instagram
LouiseNeil on LinkedIn
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[00:00:00] Laura: Boy, I wish I had known you four years ago.
[00:00:02] Louise: I'm 50 shades of grey.
[00:00:04] Nikki: Walk towards my voice.
[00:00:05] Kim: I just have to say that right now all I want to do is renovate my kitchen.
[00:00:08] Sara: I wanted to date Nancy Drew, not be her.
[00:00:17] Laura: Hi, I'm Laura.
[00:00:18] Sara: Hi, I'm Sara.
[00:00:20] Kim: And I'm Kim.
[00:00:21] Nikki: This is Nikki.
[00:00:22] Louise: And I'm Louise.
[00:00:24] Kim: Hi, and welcome to The Best Parts Podcast, where we invite you to pull up a chair and think about your best parts, which are all your parts.
[00:00:34] Nikki: Hello, everyone. And welcome to episode three of The Best Parts. This is Nikki and today we'll be talking to the awesome, the fabulous, the amazing Louise Neil about finding work that fits. Hi Louise.
[00:00:46] Louise: Hi, Nikki.
[00:00:47] Nikki: Louise is talking to us from the party and the cool apartment known as Canada. Eh? She is a workshop creator, NLP practitioner, and speaker. She is also a transformational life and career coach working with introverted entrepreneurs and business leaders to empower and instill courage, partnering with them to overcome the blocks that hold them back from living their best lives. Sometimes she even gets some sleep and I don't think she's ever bored.
[00:01:13] Louise: Never.
[00:01:14] Nikki: Never, ever. What I want you to know about Louise is that she is intelligent, thoughtful, very wise, incredibly kind and says the word "process" funny. And she says that word a lot and I'm still trying to figure out if it happens naturally or Louise do you just do that to entertain us?
[00:01:30] Louise: Yes, especially Sara.
[00:01:34] Nikki: So, let's start talking about work that fits.
[00:01:37] Louise: Let's go.
[00:01:38] Nikki: So, Louise, what got you interested in helping people figure out how to discover the work that lights them up?
[00:01:43] Louise: Doing something that's really exciting and meaningful to me, is really my driver. It's that thing that stretches me in ways that I never imagined. And working in an environment where I didn't feel like that was my primary objective, being able to be connected to people and help them be their very best selves. And for me, stepping into career and life coaching, I just want to share it all with everyone so that they can step into work that feels good. We spend so much time at our jobs, right? Over 90,000 hours of our lives we spend at our jobs. And if we're disconnected, or we're not feeling like our whole selves, like our best selves, then that carries throughout our whole lives. It just becomes gooey and it just spreads everywhere.
[00:02:36] Nikki: I'm stuck on 90,000 hours at the gooey and the spread.
[00:02:40] Kim: Can I just say the 90,000 hours made my heart stop? I was like, what?
[00:02:45] Nikki: Yeah.
[00:02:45] Laura: I'm grateful I was muted when she said 90,000 hours, ‘cause I said a word.
[00:02:53] Louise: Yeah, isn't that incredible? And, and, and often times, and I don't know about you guys, but for me, I was in a place where I wasn't sure even how I got there. It was that autopilot, that commute, that drive to work that got me there. And you know, all of a sudden, you're in the parking lot at work and you wonder how you got there.
[00:03:12] Louise: Did you drive safely? Did you speed through that school zone? You don't know, but I feel for me, that's what happened in my whole career. I did some amazing things, really proud of some of the things that I did, but I got to a point where it's like, how did I end up here? How did I end up feeling small at work?
[00:03:33] Louise: How did I end up dreading work Sunday night, before Monday morning even came around? How was it that by Tuesday, I couldn't wait for the weekend? Like, I don't want to live my life like that. And it was that process, I don't want to say that I hit a wall, but I felt like I woke up on my drive to work one day and I was like, "Where am I?"
[00:03:55] Kim: Louise, I feel like you were just speaking to my soul because I went through the exact same thing. That was amazing to hear it coming out of somebody else's mouth.
[00:04:03] Nikki: Yeah.
[00:04:03] Louise: So, Kim, what was it like for you? Was it a wall? Was it a realization? What happens when it needs to be different?
[00:04:12] Kim: I feel like it was an awakening for me. It was all of a sudden, I woke up and went, wait, this is life?? No life is more than this. So, I really felt like it was an awakening moment. Like my eyes were suddenly open.
[00:04:28] Laura: Mine was more like I hit a brick wall. I was thinking, as you were talking, "I hit a brick wall!"
[00:04:34] Nikki: Smacked right into her, huh?
[00:04:36] Laura: I did!
[00:04:38] Sara: I feel like I had a very different experience with my career.
[00:04:41] Nikki: I did too.
[00:04:41] Sara: Maybe I just feel maybe fortunate. I've always wanted to be in the game of golf. And I think mine was more of a stepping through a door when I left being a golf pro into being a college coach. That's when I realized that I wasn't truly happy being a golf pro. But I, but I wasn't in that space where like, "What am I doing?" I really enjoyed being a golf pro, but I loved coaching so much more. So, I think it can be a little subtle too. It's not that brick wall. I didn't have that feeling
[00:05:12] Nikki: Well, and I have always just gone where I want to go. I have done marketing. I have done HR. I was a flight attendant. I've done office management and membership recruitment.
[00:05:22] Nikki: So I've had a very vast experience because I'm like, "what am I interested in now?" And kind of move through that. And then it always kind of trickles down slowly into, "Okay. It's time to move on the energy of what I need now is changing." So, it's been very, very different for me.
[00:05:38] Louise: See, and I think though that's the key, Nikki and Sara, you guys had this, maybe it was a realization before it was the wall or before it was a big awakening. Sara, you, you even said that you were doing something, and you realized you weren't, you weren't truly happy.
[00:05:54] Sara:] Yeah. I didn't realize that in the moment until I got to something so much better when I realized, "Oh, this is where I'm supposed to be."
[00:06:03] Nikki: It's kind of hitting that critical mass of dissatisfaction. Sometimes it's like a hard wall and sometimes it builds and builds until you get to that point where you say, “Something needs to change because of this is not okay anymore."
[00:06:16] Louise: Yeah, we get deficient on fulfillment and, and, and then, and then we start searching for it. And then sometimes too, then, then we get all confused.
[00:06:26] Louise: I hate oftentimes it's like, can I really leave a job? Can I really do something else? Is there really something more if there's rent to pay or mortgage, there's kids, there's family, there's obligations. There's health care and pensions and benefits. There's all kinds of stuff that somehow weave itself into your life.
[00:06:46] Louise: And is all of that more important than being really fulfilled? How do you figure that out? There's a balance. There's a flow. But oftentimes we just get so stuck. We're so busy paying the bills, doing what we're "supposed to be." They're air quotes, they're doing what we're supposed to be doing.
[00:07:08] Kim: Louise, I love that comment of "deficiency of fulfillment", because I think I recognized that deficiency long before I had that moment of awakening or maybe, I don't know. I don't know how it happened, but it was, I definitely recognized that deficiency. Maybe the deficiency is what caused the awakening.
[00:07:28] Kim: Because all of a sudden it was like, wait a minute. I'm not, I'm not actually fulfilled. And Oh, by the way, this is my life. And I get to make that choice.
[00:07:36] Nikki: And well it's interesting too, because something has to be uncomfortable for you to initiate change. (yeah) Sometimes it has to build up for it to be uncomfortable. It's not the first strip of water on your forehead. It might be the 10th or the 100th, but eventually even if you're asleep, you're going to roll over out of the way of the drip of water. So, it's that discomfort that sometimes just needs to just build up.
[00:07:58] Laura: Yes. I'll tell you my hitting the wall story. I actually loved my career. I came into a career very early on. I always wanted to be Nancy Drew when I was a kid.
[00:08:07] Nikki: Oh, hear, hear, me too.
[00:08:10] Sara: I wanted to date Nancy Drew, not be her.
[00:08:10]All:
[00:08:14] Laura: And I ended up doing out of college, worked in a fraud detection unit for credit card companies. Over time, I moved around and moved all over the country. And then I moved into e-commerce fraud detection. Trying to stop online order fraud. I'd moved somewhere for a job, and then they would close the division down. And that happened to me three or four times. Probably people at some point were afraid to see me coming, because that meant that the office was going to close down.
[00:08:40] Laura: Finally, the last time it happened, I was like, I am out. I am not doing this again. I cannot stay here. And I hadn't realized that I wasn't satisfied in the job. Though all of the markers were there. And it's interesting, Kim, what you just said about, "Oh, I don't have to do this". And it was like, hitting a wall or a cold bucket of water to realize, you know what, I don't have to do this anymore. I don't have to do this. I can find something else to do. And it was scary as hell too, but yeah, that was my hit the wall moment.
[00:09:12] Nikki: I know Louise has some thoughts about the, the word pivot. I would love to hear your reflection on that and your thoughts on the magic of the pivot or when to not pivot even.
[00:09:23] Louise: You're merrily going down this road and we're going to just veer off to the left and we do something slightly different or that kind of fits, but it's not too big of a change. And then maybe we can go a little bit farther. And then we veer off to the right now and we weave our way, we make these small changes.
[00:09:41] Louise: But what happens when we get to a point where it's more than a change? What if it's more than a turn that we want to take? What if it's a leap? How do we leap when, what we feel, that fulfillment that we desire feels like a really big stretch?
[00:10:00] Nikki: Well, and even more than a stretch, like you said, it's a leap almost from one path to another and you might not be able to see the path quite yet that you're going to land on.
[00:10:09] Louise: Yeah. It's like I imagined for myself, I envision myself, I'm trying to cross a stream and there's some rocks and you weave your way and you get into the middle of the stream and all of a sudden it's well, where's my next step? You see this rock out in front of you. Can I do that? What if I do that, what if it's slippery? What if I fall? That's a really big leap or is it, can I step there? To go through all of these things. But in the meantime, here you are, you're stuck. You've stopped moving.
[00:10:38] Nikki: Well and to kind of continue this analogy with a bit of a career renovation, focus, you're in a job and you're on that rock and you see a lot of options in front of you. Some of them, you may not even see because they're just below the surface of the water, but what are some of the options for people to help them make that decision?
[00:10:58] Louise: Yeah. And I mean, really, it's being open to that sometimes we don't even know what we don't know, and the possibilities could be endless. But digging into that, what is it that I don't know? How do you get to know that and really connecting with your insides? Because I think that's what the goal is. How do I match who I am on the inside with what I do on the outside? So, I don't feel like I'm an imposter. So, I feel like I belong. So, I can show up in a place where I can fully be me. So, I can put all of my best parts out on display and be okay with that.
[00:11:38] Louise: Sometimes we find ourselves in a place where we can't be ourselves. For me, I'm an introvert, finding myself in a very extroverted organization in a very extroverted place. I kept feeling like who I was, was wrong. Because I didn't know how to show up. I didn't know how to be an extrovert.
[00:11:58] Nikki: I know one of the gifts of what you do is to help people recognize they don't have to change who they are, how they are, what they like, to show up in their job for that 90,000 hours of your life. You are excited to help people find work that fits like a glove.
[00:12:18] Louise: Yeah. Just imagine how exhausting, like how maybe you don't even have to imagine how exhausting is it to be someone different for 90,000 hours of your life?
[00:12:30] Nikki: To try to fit in somewhere. Oh my gosh. I want to nap right now just thinking about that.
[00:12:37] Sara: Ugh. Yeah. 90,000 hours of not being satisfied in a job. I've seen people go through that and I feel like I've been fortunate. I have maybe 20% of the time I feel that way. So, I can't imagine.
[00:12:48] Laura: I'm thinking about how much easier it would have been to have made that transition if I'd have had a guide. So. Yeah. Wow.
[00:12:56] Sara: Louise, when you said "taking the leap" my heart kind of fluttered a little bit. So, you have a client coming to you that wants to take that leap, but they're stuck on the ground. How do you guide that client?
[00:13:07] Louise: Well, I think with any opportunity, the fact that you're stuck, the fact that you are you're here at a place now that you're like, okay, what's next? What's more? It's why I'm a career renovation specialist. I link it to this idea of, you know, before you renovate a room or a place in your house, that's how I grew up. There was always renovations going on. Before, you know, maybe what you want, you know this room needs to change. You know, that you have this dream of the dream kitchen. I don't know about you guys, but it's always about the kitchen.
[00:13:41] Nikki: It's the heart of the home.
[00:13:43] Sara: And it has to have a big island in the middle of it.
[00:13:46] Louise: So, you start to dream, and you start to imagine. Well, before you get started into a renovation, it's really about let's reveal what we have. What are the bones, what are we going to keep?
[00:13:57] Louise: What do we need? You tear into a wall and do you need to replace all the plumbing or, or maybe the electrical is still good, but you need to be able to take stock of what you have and be connected with what it is that you want. You want a kitchen with a big island, but what do you have? So, if you don't know what you have, how do you know what you need?
[00:14:18] Louise: So, it's like this reveal process and assessing what it is you're starting with. And then start designing what your career looks like. What does it really need? What do you need in a career to be fully yourself? So that you don't have to be someone else? And once you design it much, like you have your beautiful kitchen, you gotta consider all of those things.
[00:14:44] Louise: You got to consider your budget. You've got to consider your countertop, your flooring. You've gotta consider all of those things, the timing. But once you get through that now, what do you do now? Now comes the fun part. Now you get to start to rebuild. You take action. You start to accomplish great things.
[00:15:03] Louise: And sometimes you get started on your renovation and then you're like, "Hey, I really need a farmhouse sink in my design." And you make those changes. You are flexible, you adapt, but you're still are moving forward. But you're moving forward now with this awareness of what it is that you need, because you've taken the time to take stock.
[00:15:28] Laura: I have a skeptical part that wants to know, do you really think anybody can find a job that resonates with them?
[00:15:35] Louise: Absolutely.
[00:15:35] Laura: Oh boy. I wish I had known you four years ago, sister.
[00:15:39] Louise: I really do. And sometimes it's not big renovations, right? Sometimes you walk into the kitchen and go, all I need right now is a fresh coat of paint. And man, is it going to look amazing. But if you, if you're not looking, if you're not taking stock, if you're not in that place, then how do you know? Sometimes we're doing the right thing in the wrong company. Or maybe we're doing the wrong thing at the right company or the right thing at the wrong, whatever that is.
[00:16:09] Louise: Sometimes we need to make a big, big change. Sometimes we say this company culture, it's not for me. But I really love what I do. I'm going to go do it somewhere else.
[00:16:19] Kim: So, how do you identify whether it's the wrong company or the wrong thing that you're doing?
[00:16:26] Louise: You have to ask those hard questions. What is it that brings light into your day? Before I left my corporate job, I walked around with a stack of index cards, stuffed into my portfolio that I'd carry around meeting to meeting. And I wrote out those things that lit me up. And on the other side of the index card I wrote the things that crushed my heart. Why was I in the bathroom crying? What happened to put me here? What don't I love about my job?
[00:16:57] Nikki: And that kind of the beginning of your curiosity of who am I at work? What do I love? How can I change to align with who I am? And then what does that look like?
[00:17:10] Louise: Yeah, absolutely. Because maybe there are so many things that you love about what you do. Maybe it's a really tough conversation that you want to have with your leader to say, Hey, this is where I want to be. Or this is something I'm really interested in. Can, can we make it work? Can we bring more of that into my life, into my job? Sometimes those are tough conversations to have, but sometimes that's the coat of paint that you need.
[00:17:37] Nikki: I think also sometimes there are things that come easily to people that they don't even consider as a possibility for a career.
[00:17:46] Louise: Well, yeah, because I don't know about you, but growing up for me, my folks worked very hard. All my parents, blue collar workers worked very, very hard. Left in the morning, worked hard, came home, exhausted. Work is hard. Work is hard. But is it? If there's something that you really love to do, is it hard? And so those easy things, sometimes we don't even consider being an avenue or a path for work or as a career because we have this story about work being hard.
[00:18:20] Laura: That's right. I was just thinking that, as you said that Louise, is we do. We have a story. This is what we, this is what we learned, or most of us may have learned is that work has to be hard. Nobody likes their job and that's just life. But it doesn't have to be that way.
[00:18:36] Nikki: Well, and I love, I think I'm going to be crediting this to Louise, but I'm not a hundred percent sure "that to work hard doesn't mean work is hard." You can put your head down and work hard at something you really love, and it's not hard to do.
[00:18:52] Louise: Absolutely.
[00:18:53] Sara: I totally agree with that because I was just thinking about my job. And I'm like, there's things that are very difficult in my job and I love tackling those difficult things. And that's how I know I'm in the right career because --
[00:19:07] Louise: Right.
[00:19:09] Sara: Work can be difficult, but it's not like, the harder I work. I've definitely had those parents, Louise where, you know, my dad worked really hard. And my mom, the same. She was a nurse and would come home with stories and I would see them. I don't think they were fully satisfied in their jobs per se.
[00:19:27] Sara: And I agree with you. I think that's what we're grown up seeing. And this is a story and you know; how do you break that story?
[00:19:34] Kim: Well, it's so interesting. Cause I had, I here's where I had a different experience was when I was Izzy's age, when I was 10, my mom went back to school. She had been a high school teacher and she went back to school and got her MBA went into the corporate world and loved it, loved the work she was doing.
[00:19:51] Kim: And then she redefined herself again because she had been in HR and then she moved out to HR and to consult. And like all of this amazing growth. And so, for me, I'm on my fifth iteration of self in terms of what my career is. Because I find it, although I, you know, I spoke earlier about that awakening moment.
[00:20:12] Kim: That was about a job that I had, not necessarily about what it is that I want to do, because I think that I know what I want to move on to long before I have that awakening moment. And it's happened so many times in my life. But I didn't have, you know, I didn't. My dad had the same, he was a college professor and he loved his work and it was never work for him.
[00:20:32] Kim: And that was very, very clear for me. So, I just had a different story where you find what you love. And I think the more challenging side for me and why I was interested, and I love that idea of just the simple act of a note card, of writing what lights you up and what brings you pain. Just so you can recognize that because I think for me, it's, it's the, where do I get lit up?
[00:20:55] Kim: And where is that excitement going to be coming from that I sit in for much longer than I need to, because I am willing to take the leap and move forward.
[00:21:04] Nikki: Well, and it's just a bunch of ideas until you see like, "Oh, I have five note cards full of things that make me cry. And one of things that light me up at work."
[00:21:14] Nikki: Maybe we need to look more at that because if it's just in your head, it's hard to recognize that there is a huge list of items or vice versa. Like, "Wow, there's actually a lot of things I really enjoy about what I'm doing right now. And there are hard things. How can I adapt them to work for me?"
[00:21:32] Louise: Yeah, getting them out if we are working towards matching who you are on the inside with what you do on the outside, then you got to get the inside out.
[00:21:43] Nikki: Right?
[00:21:45] Sara: I love that. And I'm going to go buy note cards this week. I love the idea though, Louise. I love that you went through that and I'm sure that's something that you bring to your clients to say, this is something that I've gone through and it helped me get to where I want to go. And I just think that's just those small tools can really have that big awakening. And I just thank you for sharing that.
[00:22:10] Nikki: One of the gifts of coaching is looking at people and saying, "I've been where you are. And I know a way out. It's not the only way but let me support you as you find your way."
[00:22:21] Louise: Sometimes I think coaching is just yelling into a dark room: "Keep moving!"
[00:22:26] Nikki: "Walk towards my voice."
[00:22:28] Louise: “There's a light switch on the wall, so I can't help you turn it on, but it's like, you're you're okay. “Just take a step. See, what's just beyond your reach.
[00:22:41] Laura: That's really interesting that you say that because one of the things that I noticed or during my rocky transition, because I didn't have Louise, was taking that one step.
[00:22:52] Laura: Just keep moving. And just keep moving and that's an amazing, action makes, action is the magic, I think. Action is the magic, just keep moving.
[00:23:04] Sara: And what a similar thing that we talked about last week was if you want to walk for a hundred minutes, you start with the first minute, the first five minutes, right?
[00:23:13] Kim: We will probably hear that so many different times with each of us, is that it is all about taking that first step. And it is one step at a time. I wish it wasn't. I wish it was like we had magic fairy dust, and everything would be fine. But you have to take every step one step at a time. And it's just, it's very cool to see how it plays out in all these different areas of our life.
[00:23:36] Nikki: I think it's the, the first step, you know, it starts the motion, it starts the action. It starts the momentum, and sometimes there's big leaping steps and sometimes you're shuffling your feet hoping you're moving along. But it's that once that momentum is created, if you can continue it, that is where you're going to be moving into that new place you want to go.
[00:23:59] Sara: I was thinking too, though, you know, sometimes Nikki, you were talking about like a baby step than a giant leap, and sometimes you're stepping backwards to then step forward again. And that's something, I think maybe Louise, I don't know if you want to speak to that, where maybe a client gets starts forward and then all of a sudden, they feel like they've taken three steps back and then what?
[00:24:17] Nikki: Or they need to take three steps back because they're going down the wrong path.
[00:24:21] Louise: Well, and, and also there's also option Q or whatever we are at. But what if I just need to be, what if I, what if I need to be here? What if I just need to be still? So, what if I need to lick my wounds for a moment? What if you get fired from a job? You're, you're not running down the street well, maybe you are running down the street, skipping and shouting, but, but sometimes it really hurts, right? Sometimes it really hurts. And sometimes because we attach who we are with what we do in our jobs so much that sometimes those, those wounds just need to be licked and we just need to take a breath, but we do it intentionally.
[00:25:05] Louise: I think when you stop and have a look around that's different than being stuck. Intention. It all comes down to intention and it maybe it is, I don't even, I don't know if it is a step back because it is a step. It can be in any direction and, and, and it's still, it's still movement. It's still being curious. And we all bring that to our coaching: "What would happen if…?"
[00:25:33] Kim: Yeah, I love that. I talk a lot about intentional stillness in the work that I do with my clients. And I don't think we give enough space to that. And I love that, that you think about that as well. That stillness is still a step. It's still a choice. And, sometimes we really need that before we can move forward. And I'm pretty sure I had that job loss where I was skipping down the road, at least once in my life.
[00:26:04] Nikki: Well, and I love that too, because I think it's the intentionality that is actually the movement. Where if you just stop and okay, "I'm stuck" that sticks your feet to the ground. And if you say, "I am stopping because I need you to evaluate what's going on." There is still momentum and action and movement in that intentionality. It is not a stuckness. It is a mindful, slow, energetic motion as opposed to a physical moving forward motion.
[00:26:37] Kim: Intentional sloth-mode.
[00:26:42] Nikki: Aw, that sounds nice for this afternoon.
[00:26:43] Kim: Right? We all need a little intentional sloth-mode.
[00:26:48] Sara: I've got a sloth as my spirit animal.
[00:26:52] Kim: Why does that not surprise me?
[00:26:55] Sara: Think about it? All you do is cuddle, poop and that's it.
[00:27:00] Louise: Eat.
[00:27:00] Laura: Eat.
[00:27:01] Kim: Food. Food is involved.
[00:27:03] Sara: All the good things.
[00:27:04] Kim: And I'm sure there's some sort of procreating, although can you imagine? Never mind.
[00:27:09] Nikki: Yeah, very slow. motion, very slow motion. See mine is the Otter, the playfulness, the floating, holding hands and just having a good time.
[00:27:18] Kim: I see that too.
[00:27:21] Nikki: Is there anything else you would like to speak into the space, Louise before I have you tell all the places that we can find you.
[00:27:27] Louise: No. I, I love our conversation today, right? We do. We all come from different backgrounds. And we all have found ourselves, in whatever direction it was, jump, leap, crawl, whatever we needed to do. We found ourselves here at this moment, doing something that absolutely lights us all up. We've all been able to find work that fits like a glove.
[00:27:54] Louise: Are we going to be doing the same thing five years from now? Probably not I hope we're still doing the podcast, but other than that, like, we're, we're all going to be evolving. We're going to find our way through this. Again, and again and again. We're going to become masters at reinvention, I think. And it's either big reinventions or just these small little tweaks, and we're going to keep moving forward from where we are just staying connected with who we are.
[00:28:25] Nikki: And that's the gift of knowing who you are. That as you were growing and evolving in what you do, you know how to adapt that or change that or move through that because you know who you are and you know how you want to show up for those 90,000 hours. I still can't get over that number. I just can't.
[00:28:45] Laura: I do want to say that I love what you just said, Louise, about reinventing yourself. And I'm getting used to that. I'm getting used to reinventing because what I thought I wanted to do two years ago is evolving on a monthly basis. And it is fun. It's fabulous because you get to create something new as needed. And as the world needs it. And so, I think it's, I love that you pointed that out. That's a new behavior for me to be comfortable in shifting my focus. I think that's definitely a value and a gift that you and the rest of us can bring to the world.
[00:29:23] Nikki: I love what you said there, Laura, about like, you, you feel ready for whatever's coming next because of that. Even if you might not know it, but because you know who you are and you're solid in that now you're like, "Okay, let's go."
[00:29:35] Laura: Yeah.
[00:29:36] Sara: I feel like a lot of people are in very different places in their careers at different times. But we all have a path that, I don't know, I just feel like you don't have to have some big overhaul of a career. Maybe a small little shift is going to make you happier. And that's something I'm hearing from Louise today is sometimes I just need to paint the walls and I'm going to feel so much better.
[00:29:56] Sara: And other times it's knock that shit down and let's put in a huge island. Like, I'm pivoting over here. I, I think that's a cool thing to hear, right? It's not like one or the, I mean, you don't have to have some major thing, but maybe you do. I just think it's nice for people to understand that it doesn't have to be huge.
[00:30:15] Kim: It's not one size fits all.
[00:30:17] Sara: Yeah.
[00:30:18] Nikki: Yeah. You don't have to overhaul everything. Maybe you don't even need a contractor. You just need a painter to come and help you get everything done.
[00:30:25] Kim: You know, I just have to say that right now all I want to do is renovate my kitchen. Yeah. Seriously, (laughter) this conversation's making me go downstairs and be like, “Okay, honey, we're home we're both home. Let's tear down the walls.”
[00:30:36] Louise: Exactly.
[00:30:36] Laura: Right?
[00:30:38] Kim: Thanks for that, folks.
[00:30:42] Laura: Thanks.
[00:30:44] Nikki: Well, Louise is a career renovation specialist. So, if you need help with that, Louise, I would love for you to tell the people, all the places they can find you and whatever you have coming up that you'd like to share.
[00:30:55] Louise: I can be found online at LouiseNeil.com. I'm most active on LinkedIn. So, look me up there and please connect.
[00:31:05] Louise: I'm also on Instagram at mylife.project And what else? Oh, coming up one of the things that is really that I'm really connected and passionate about is finding our way together. So, I am launching a group in the fall where we can all together, go through our career renovation and look at what it is. How do we assess? How do we design? How do we accomplish? And together supporting each other in a group. So that's coming up in the fall. I'll also have some workshops coming up in the fall. So, the best way is to connect with me on LinkedIn and through my website so that you don't miss out on some of the great things I have coming up.
[00:31:51] Nikki: Awesome. Alright, you ready for the Lightning Round?
[00:31:53] Louise: Oh yeah.
[00:31:57] Nikki: Bring it on, huh? Alright, here we go. We're going to start easy coffee or tea?
[00:32:02] Louise: Coffee, like right now I'm drinking coffee.
[00:32:08] Nikki: The way you said that word ‘coffee’ stirred something up in me. Now that I want coffee. After hearing you say that word.
[00:32:14] Laura: Was that a pun? It 'stirred' something up in me.
[00:32:19] Nikki: It was an unintentional pun, but yes.
[00:32:22] Laura: (wa-wa) I'm here all week.
[00:32:27] Nikki: Right. And because I know you have both dog or cat?
[00:32:31] Louise: Uh, that's like picking children, like who's your favorite? I will have to say dog, I guess, because I don't own a cat. So, my dog has a cat.
[00:32:45] Nikki: So, you picked the dog and he picked the cat?
[00:32:51] Louise: Yes. And, and really at the end of the day, and Laura, you will probably agree, cats don't have owners, so right? They have people.
[00:32:59] Laura: They own us, yes.
[00:33:01] Nikki: All right. Black and white or shades of grey?
[00:33:04] Louise: (laughter) Yeah. I'm 50 shades of grey.
[00:33:07] Nikki: Oh, it's your question. You answer it your way.
[00:33:12] Louise: Or is that for our Best Parts After Dark Podcast?
[00:33:16] Nikki: I mean, it is now. You still have to answer the question.
[00:33:24] Louise: I think I did, didn't I?
[00:33:27] Nikki: There are 50 shades of grey to be continued later. (laughter) Okay. Upside down or inside out?
[00:33:35] Louise: Ooh, inside out.
[00:33:37] Nikki: And "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" or "I Am the Walrus"?
[00:33:43] Louise: "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds."
[00:33:45] Kim: Yeah.
[00:33:48] Laura: Sorry, what was that?
[00:33:52] Louise: Yeah!
[00:33:55] Nikki: That was Kim.
[00:33:56] Laura: I know, I know, but I wasn't sure if that was an affirmative or a negative response.
[00:34:01] Nikki: I couldn't tell either. I couldn't tell either.
[00:34:03] Kim: Now I have it in my head and I'm dancing around, "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds."
[00:34:07] Nikki: Was that a good sound?
[00:34:08] Kim: It's a good sound. I love that song.
[00:34:10] Nikki: Okay. When I always hear "I Am the Walrus" when Bono did it Across the Universe. So that's why that's my favorite one, because I love his version of it. Okay. This brings us to the end of our third episode.
[00:34:22] Nikki: Thank you everyone for pulling up a chair and joining us today. Until next time remember all the parts are the best parts. Goodbye for now.
Tuesday Aug 04, 2020
Tuesday Aug 04, 2020
This week we're going to talk about our bodies specifically around movement, health, and wellness as we welcome into the guest spotlight, our very own Sara Doell. Sara is our resident West Coaster, living her dream life in San Francisco, both as a college golf coach and as a life coach. Whether it's the women on her team or a client she's working with, Sara has a passion for helping others reach their potential by taking small steps that lead to great outcomes.
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[00:00:00] Sara: Well, I was born to be a coach.
[00:00:01] Laura: You do, you do know 41 is not that old. Am I right?
[00:00:05] Louise: But it’s for that future you.
[00:00:07] Nikki: You have a lot of celebration happening.
[00:00:09] Kim: Sara loves burpees.
[00:00:14] Laura: Hi, I'm Laura.
[00:00:16] Sara: Hi, I'm Sara
[00:00:17] Kim: And I'm Kim.
[00:00:18] Nikki: This is Nikki.
[00:00:19] Louise: And I'm Louise.
[00:00:21] Kim: Hi, and welcome to The Best Parts Podcast, where we invite you to pull up a chair and think about your best parts, which are all your parts. This week we're going to talk about our bodies specifically around movement, health, and wellness.
[00:00:36] Kim: As we welcome into the guest spotlight, our very own Sara Doell. Sara is our resident West Coaster, living her dream life in San Francisco, both as a college golf coach and as a life coach. Whether it's the women on her team or a client she's working with, Sara has a passion for helping others reach their potential by taking small steps that lead to great outcomes.
[00:00:57] Kim: Sara works in a holistic manner, taking the whole person into consideration, helping them achieve their dreams. And although she's part of The Best Parts team today, the focus is on her in a different way. So welcome to The Best Parts, Sara. Are you ready to dive in?
[00:01:12] Sara: I am so ready to dive in.
[00:01:14] Kim: So, Sara, I'd love it if you'd share with us your story. How did you get to be living your best life?
[00:01:20] Sara: I grew up in upstate New York and very early on, I realized that sports was going to be an outlet for me. I was the little tomboy that played soccer and basketball. And I ended up starting the game of golf at nine years old.
[00:01:35] Sara: And right from the beginning, I realized that I just loved to compete. And I loved being a part of a team. I was really fortunate to end up playing college golf at Penn State. I ended up moving down to Charlotte and I was a golf pro. And before I knew it, someone said to me, "Have you ever thought about coaching?"
[00:01:50] Sara: And I hadn't. And I ended up being able to go up to my alma mater and start my coaching career at Penn State. And it just took off from there. And I, I realized in that first year of being a college golf coach, that I was born to be a coach. And I just, I feel fortunate that golf was my avenue to do that.
[00:02:06] Sara: And then a job opened up at the University of San Francisco, and I have wanted to live in San Francisco for about 20 years. And I got the job and moved across the country and now, I'm just working on living my best life out here on the West Coast.
[00:02:20] Kim: So you were golfing since the age of nine. I'm curious, did you grow up in a family that was really sporty?
[00:02:27] Sara: No. No, is the short answer. My dad's played golf for most of his life, but what really got me started was actually one of the most defining moments of my childhood. I was at a family outing and my father's uncle, so he was my great uncle, Charlie. He had gotten a new set of golf clubs and he brought them out to show everyone.
[00:02:50] Sara: And the old clubs were in his car and a bunch of us kids were there and he let us swing. And, I took one swing first shot, had it over his head into the next-door neighbor's yard.
[00:03:00] Kim: Wow.
[00:03:00] Sara: And had never swung a golf club in my life. And he was like, "A girl can do that??" And took me out for lessons right away. He would take me golfing.
[00:03:09] Sara: He would come to my golf tournaments. And that's where my golf started. I didn't have a very sporty family. I mean, my dad definitely, he does a lot of movement, but my mother was not athletic in any sense of the word. And honestly, I grew up with some bad genes and if, if I hadn't found movement, I don't know where I would be right now, because I just, I know that I'm susceptible to some things from some of the health problems, both my mom and dad have had.
[00:03:33] Sara: I just feel so fortunate that athletics is, and movement has become such a big part of my life. And it was kind of by accident and I'm, I'm really grateful.
[00:03:43] Kim: That's so wonderful. And it's, I love that you say that you were born to be a coach and that not only are you this amazing golf coach, but you've also parlayed that into being a life coach. What brought that on?
[00:03:58] Sara: [00:03:58] I was sitting on my couch one day and I was thinking there's more for me to put out into the world. While I adore the team that I coach and I want to be a golf coach, much, much longer. I work with seven or eight players at a time, and I felt with life coaching, I could work with more people and I could reach larger groups.
[00:04:18] Sara: I've been working with a life coach for several years. And I've seen what she's done, where she works with individuals, but she also brings groups together. And that's what really brought me to it. I do the same thing with my college golf coaching. I work individually with each player, but then I'm also creating team culture and getting us working together as a group.
[00:04:35] Sara: And, you know, they're all 18 to 22 years old, right. And I keep getting older and they stay the same age.
[00:04:41] Kim: That's not right.
[00:04:46] Sara: So I'm like, I want to work with people of all ages. I want to work with people that are maybe further along in life that are struggling to find what works for them. So that was part of why I shifted over to wanting to add life coaching.
[00:04:59] Louise: Sara, what is it that you bring from your golf coaching experience into your life coaching experience and vice versa?
[00:05:08] Sara: I'd have to say my ability to meet people where they are and to empathize with their situation. Because as a college coach, it's a lot more about relationships and communication then it really is about the sport, if I'm being honest. And that's what I've loved about coaching is connecting with the players on a one on one level and having the opportunity to meet them where they are and have empathy for their situation. And to try to find ways to help them be their best selves. And life coaching is to really get to know the client, get to know where they are, where they want to go and then provide tools for them to get there.
[00:05:44] Laura: I know one of the things that surprised me was that being a coach to a sports team was really more than that. So, I was wondering if you could say more about that.
[00:05:53] Sara: Absolutely. So, all of the athletes that I coach they're from all over the nation and all over the world. And they have a swing coach at home, someone who's working specifically with mechanics and technique. And then they come to college with a really great golf swing. And they're typically lacking in other areas such as emotional management, time management, golf course management, how to practice properly, how to balance school and relationships and friendships, and then travel with the team. And there's just so much more that goes into college coaching. And that's why I've loved it so much because, while I love the game of golf, I love coaching more. And golf has been my avenue to be able to coach. I am way more passionate about standing next to the golf green with one of the players talking about what they're going through and, you know, helping change their mindset so they can get more out of that day's practice. That's, that's where my passion is.
[00:06:46] Sara: You wouldn't believe the amount of times I've had players in my office crying about things that have nothing to do with golf.
[00:06:51] Nikki: When I was in college, I was not a student athlete. I was there, I did my homework and I went about my way. And you're not just teaching them how to be an athlete. You're really giving them the life skills that I have times that I reflect on saying, "why didn't they have that in school?"
[00:07:07] Nikki: Like the time management, the emotional management, how to take care of your schedule to get things done and balance all of these things. I feel like so many people kind of in our age group, that's something at least from my perspective, and what I hear, they really struggle with that. You know how to fit in the workout, how to be working towards something, how to manage all the emotions that are going on.
[00:07:31] Kim: Well, and through navigating this time with the college open and closed, and "are we remote? Where are the students going to be? Are we going to have a season?" You've had to navigate a lot with your team.
[00:07:45] Sara: And I feel really fortunate to be the one to guide them through this COVID-19 thing. You know, our spring season was cut short right in the middle of season. And that was devastating for some of those players. The two seniors, their careers ended overnight. So yeah, that's the stuff that I really, I feel fortunate to be able to help them get through difficult times like this.
[00:08:04] Kim: It's clear how much it is about the whole person. So that even in the context of a sports team, you're not just talking about the sport. You're talking about them as women in the world.
[00:08:15] Sara: And sports teaches you so much, you know. From resilience to teamwork, to working hard and realizing that there aren't shortcuts. We're actually sitting here in the summer of 2020 as we're recording this, and we just went remote for the fall. So, we don't have a fall season either.
[00:08:32] Sara: So, they're all staying home for the rest of the year. And we'll get through it and we're going to be stronger on the other side. And this is what I want to bring to my life coaching is I want to leave them better than I found them. And that's just really important to me.
[00:08:43] Kim: That’s so beautiful. And I love that that you're taking the skills that you have learned over these 15 years as a golf coach into your life coaching business.
[00:08:53] Kim: So, what is something that people seem to misunderstand about you?
[00:08:57] Sara: I'd have to say that for someone who has been an athletic coach, who played college athletics, I think people look at someone like me, that's crazy about movement and working out. And you know, all of that, that they think is just easy. And it is so not.
[00:09:12] Sara: There are days that the comfy sheets and the warm bed wins over going to the gym. And there are stretches of time where I don't feel great in my body. There are stretches of time where I just, you know. I've struggled my whole life with body image and self-confidence around that. And I have worked really, really hard to get through that.
[00:09:32] Sara: And I think some people just see like the - I’m not at the end result by any means - but where I am now at the age of 41 versus where I was 15 years ago, I'm definitely much more confident. I don't look that much different. I have just found a way to realize that this is the body I have, and I'm just really proud of how much I can do at my age still. And I'm not planning to stop.
[00:09:54] Laura: You do you do know 41 is not that old, am I right?
[00:09:58] Sara: No, I didn't want 41 to sound old.
[00:10:01] Louise: Sara, I'd love to move more. I really would. And there's this, I don't know what it is. What, what is it that keeps people from putting more movement into their lives or from, from, you know, sometimes we, we try to put more movement into our lives and it just doesn't work. Like for me, I don't know how many times I've joined the gym. And promptly canceled my membership.
[00:10:27] Kim: I'm not the only one?
[00:10:28] Louise: No. Like it its I can't even speak to how many different, right. It's like, Oh, I didn't like that chain. I'm going to go over here and try this. Right. Like really? Is it really that? Yeah, it makes a difference. So, what is that like? What is that all about? Cause I, I know, well, I know Kim and I, and we're not the only people out there, but we try to put movement into our lives and then, and then something happens and it just, it seems of all the benefits. I know all the benefits that you talk about, right? But it just, it seems that it's, I don't know. I don't want to say impossible, but it feels really hard sometimes.
[00:11:09] Sara: Oh yeah. It feels hard for me too, Louise. First thing, I'm going to ask you and everyone listening to stand up and stretch and do one squat.
[00:11:19] Kim: Right now?
[00:11:21] Sara: There's some movement.
[00:11:22] Kim: doing it. I'm up. Oh God.
[00:11:27] Nikki: Feeling everything right now.
[00:11:30] Kim: Feeling all the feels.
[00:11:33] Sara: So, a couple of things, when you're a part of a group, you're more likely to be accountable, right? So that was, that was my whole point there, but also, I want everyone to just get up and move for a minute. So, Louise, the, the short answer to that is people feel like they don't belong, and gyms are difficult.
[00:11:50] Sara: Gyms are a place where people there's, you know, you've seen those, those men that walk around the gym that looked like they were holding suitcases. You know what I mean? Like they're just walking, like --
[00:12:00] Nikki: I know exactly what you mean!
[00:12:02] Kim: And not no offense to any men listening who just happen to be walking around carrying suitcases.
[00:12:10] Sara: There are some women I've seen do that too. But I think it's the people look at a gym and think they have to be quote, "an athlete." And I, that's one thing I want to help people change their mindset around is what an athlete is. Change the word athlete to movement or momentum.
[00:12:28] Sara: And remember that you only have one body and it's your responsibility to take care of it if you want to be on this earth for a long time. And when you go to the gym, if you don't have someone there with you helping you, you feel like you don't belong. And that's why I think some people quit as they get there and they just feel intimidated because they don't know what to do when they see these people lifting these big, heavy weights. And they're like, well, how am I supposed to be doing that? So, I think that's one thing is finding where you belong in movement is really important and finding what you enjoy.
[00:12:56] Sara: I think what a lot of people do is they set goals. So, for instance, let's say you set a goal to for this week, Louise. You're going to go walk four times this week and life came up and you only did it twice. But at the end of the week, some people think like, "Ugh, I failed." So why even bother trying next week? And I think a lot of people think it's an all or nothing thing. And I, I see it just as a process where you're not always going to reach all of your goals. It doesn't mean that you quit. And that's what a lot of people do is they feel like, "Oh, you know, I lost momentum. I might as well just not bother."
[00:13:28] Louise: When I think about movement and working out and improving my health, it feels like a mountain. So, then I must do big things, right? So, if I look ahead and say here at here I am, and I have this goal of putting more movement into my life of being healthier, feeling great.
[00:13:45] Louise: It seems like a really a really big journey to take. So, then I must make big actions to get there. And what I'm hearing you say, it's more about the small things and building momentum up to that. So you don't have to run all the way up the hill. As long as you keep moving forward, then you're moving towards your goal.
[00:14:08] Sara: Yeah, absolutely. And everyone has different goals. Some people want to run a half marathon. They're not going to run 10 miles today. They're going to start with that walking a mile and then slowly adding, right? So that's for someone who wants to run a half marathon, they go, "I just want to live a life with more energy," being your goal.
[00:14:26] Sara: Well, let's say you walk five minutes today. Tomorrow you walk six, the next day you walk seven, but before you know it, you've walked a hundred minutes over the next 10 days. And I just, I think that's, it is if you thought about, "Oh, I have to go walk for an hour and a half," that feels daunting. But if it's five minutes here, six minutes there that it's like bite sized pieces, it's definitely more manageable.
[00:14:46] Kim: So, Sara overall, what does this concept of "movement" mean to you?
[00:14:50] Sara: You know, I, I think movement and I've said this before, and I believe it was not me that came up with "a body in motion, stays in motion."
[00:15:00] Louise: Yeah. That's like a law of physics. It's like, yeah,
[00:15:03] Kim: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:15:06] Laura: Sara, you and I have talked about this and, I hate movement. But I shared with you, I do stretching exercises in the morning, every morning, when I'm doing my morning meditation. And you said you considered that movement. So, what I realized was that I have a part of me thinks that movement has to be aerobic, right? So, I have it in my head that a movement, you know, movement has to be cardio, basically. I have to be burning calories in an effort to get somewhere else. So, that's, it's been interesting to hear you talk about movement as something different. And other than what I've got in my head. I also like what you just said about, you know, I could go walk five minutes today and then I could walk six minutes tomorrow, and then over a period of 10 days, I've walked a hundred minutes and that's certainly, you know. I walk 200 steps a day, whether I need to, or not from my bathroom to my office. And that's about it. So, a hundred minutes of steps over 10 days would be a lot more for me. So, I like that idea of looking at it in small bites, but then also reframing what does movement actually mean? Cause I bet I'm not the only one that thinks that movement or exercise has to be some sort of aerobic activity.
[00:16:13] Sara: Oh, absolutely. And a lot of people think exercise has to happen at the gym. Well, hello COVID-19. Gyms are closed in most places. And so --
[00:16:22] Louise: Around the world.
[00:16:23] Sara: Yes. Finding movement that you enjoy. It's not just going and picking up barbells and like, you know, I'm a CrossFitter. I love CrossFit, but I also walk, hike, bike, play tennis, you know, walk the dog. Do all sorts of other types of movement, not just one. And I think that's, what's important is finding what works for you and go do that. It could be yoga.
[00:16:46] Sara: I mean, I love yoga and some yoga classes can be extremely difficult and others, maybe you're not sweating as much, but you're moving your body and you're getting the blood flow going, then you're stretching and you're taking care of yourself. And that's what I think movement is. And people just think, "Oh movement is I have to go sweat it out for an hour and a half". I think the first 20 minutes of a workout is some of the most enjoyable time, to be honest.
[00:17:10] Kim: I love that we have a resident athlete and we do also have a resident Yogi. Nikki is our resident Yogi.
[00:17:16] Nikki: I was just going to say, “Who's that?"
[00:17:20] Kim: And I'd actually love to hear the two of you talk about that concept of movement and what it can look like in different ways.
[00:17:29] Nikki: What I love about yoga, and this is like personal preference. It's something that I haven't really found at the gym is the mindfulness of movement. And that the purpose of yoga is for you to be in your body where it is that day. So, if you're having a rough shoulder day, you meet yoga where you are with a sore shoulder, it might not be sore tomorrow, but today that's what you have to work with.
[00:17:52] Nikki: And so that there's so many ways to adapt what you're doing. And I have a hard time if I go to a gym, I have a hard time doing that because I want to push through and I want to do, and I want to get and all of those things.
[00:18:03] Sara: Yeah. And the mindfulness around yoga is something that we should bring to all of our movement.
[00:18:08] Nikki: Absolutely.
[00:18:09] Sara: So, yoga is so I love yoga because you're breathing and you're thinking about your breath and the instructor is putting you through movements and telling you where you should be focusing. And I think we should bring that to all of the movement. Think about taking a walk for 10 minutes down the road and like feeling your feet, hit the floor and just paying attention to where you are.
[00:18:32] Sara: I think that would be a great thing to add to other movements. And that's why I love yoga.
[00:18:36] Nikki: Part of what's hard for me about working out is being in my body because it doesn't feel good. Like, I don't like how my body feels when I'm moving it.
[00:18:45] Sara: I think the more that you find the movement that you enjoy that can change over time and you know, I'm not trying to make it seem like that simple. "Just figure out how to move!"
[00:18:54] Nikki: Right.
[00:18:55] Sara: But, I think the more you find, like you love yoga and you've become certified. I think that has something that you found movement that you really enjoy. Well, it's, it's challenging at times, right?
[00:19:07] Nikki: Oh yeah. I've had some days where I do a yoga class with somebody else and I'm like the whole time "I don't want to be here. This is not fun. My body doesn't feel good." And you need to find something that works for you and your body that you enjoy. So even though I wasn't having fun and didn't want to be there, part of me was like, "Yoga really speaks to me. And so I'm staying, even though I don't want to be here."
[00:19:27] Nikki: And that's a hard place. To find if you've never found it before.
[00:19:30] Sara: I've never been mad after I've gone to a yoga class.
[00:19:34] Kim: Oh I have.
[00:19:36] Nikki: I was after that one, I was just still like gnashing my teeth.
[00:19:39] Kim: Yeah, no, I have when, when, when you're next to somebody who has bendy flexie upside downie, and she's not even aware that you exist. I go into a yoga studio wanting to, and this now, you know, online yoga studios of wanting to feel the connection and also with that yoga community. And there have been times when it doesn't feel good to be in a group because it's more intimidating. Especially when you're then "the other," like the other people don't even recognize that you're there as part of it.
[00:20:11] Kim: I hear you in terms of group and finding what you love. And I feel like generally speaking, women have challenging relationships with our bodies. Like I think I can probably put that out there.
[00:20:24] Nikki: To put it mildly.
[00:20:26] Kim: As a blanket, relatively blanket statement.
[00:20:30] Nikki: [00:20:30] In some way. Yeah.
[00:20:33] Kim: And so I'm curious how we think movement can help us move beyond that feeling of that, that I just explained, like when you're in that yoga studio and you're feeling like, or wherever you are, the gym, wherever, feeling less than, and feeling judgy about our own bodies, how can we use movement in a positive way for that?
[00:20:55] Sara: I think movement has to be, you put yourself in a space with people that are likeminded, that you're working together. And so maybe it's finding your, a yoga partner that the two of you have a connection and you know, that that's the person that you connect to and you do yoga together, or maybe movement isn't in a group for you. Maybe movement is something that you enjoy doing on your own. Maybe it's jumping on your spin bike by yourself for 20 minutes every morning.
[00:21:20] Kim: Oh yeah. I broke into tears this morning. I mean, it was, it was an awesome ride and I was done, and I was sobbing. It was, it was cathartic. It was awesome.
[00:21:28] Sara: Yeah. And that's just, it, it's finding that! Finding the, the 20 minutes where your just you feel great at the end of it. And it could literally just be going for a walk with your dog and being outside and feeling good about that. And find what works for you that's going to help you move your body, but also bring you some joy. People think you have to hurt yourself through movement because you see these crazy people lifting weights above their head and feeling like, "Oh, I have to be sore." No, it's about helping change the course of your day.
[00:22:01] Kim: So, how do you do that? If you were going to coach us as a group and to help us each find that way that we like to move, how would you help us find that joyful place of movement for ourselves?
[00:22:15] Sara: What I would do is explore what movements have you done in the past that you enjoy. What activities have you done in the past, whether it's walking the dog or biking or stretching, yoga, and really explore, where is it that you're going to commit to actually doing it?
[00:22:31] Sara: I actually have a five-day program and every morning you get up and you commit to one movement for that day. And you commit to one act of self-care. You commit to one thing where you're going to nourish your body, you know, small, very small things. And then every single day, over the course of five days, we've committed to five different types of movement, five different ways you nourish your body, five different kinds of self-care, and they all link together.
[00:22:56] Sara: And that's what I would do with people is find, it's not just about movement. It's about all of it. Like I talked about earlier, making sure that you're taking movement and then adding an other choice that are going to really help you holistically.
[00:23:08] Louise: Who is it that you want to be helping in your life coaching business?
[00:23:12] Sara: Honestly? The short answer? I want to help people that want to be helped. I want to help people that want to better themselves or their situation. People who feel stuck right now and have this vision for their future, but don't know how to get there. And I want to be able to help them look five years down the road or 10 years down the road or two months down the road and create a vision and a dream and a goal. And then back up to today and create a plan to get to that vision or dream or goal. Those are the people I want to work with the ones that are going to show up and do the work.
[00:23:46] Louise: And I love that. We talked a little bit about being in your body while you're moving it and being present, but there's more to that, you know, you're, you're present while you're doing the activity, but it's for that future you.
[00:24:00] Sara: I do a lot of future based coaching. It's really important to understand where you've come from and what got you to this moment. But where do you want your future to go? And so while movement is a big part of it for me, we also have to plan for, when are you going to move? Like, how are you going to and creating a space for you to be able to do that, I think is really important.
[00:24:21] Louise: Yeah. I think that's what gets us unstuck, right? And gets us actually moving.
[00:24:26] Sara: And I want to be that coach that helps keep them accountable. I've worked with people who have said, you know, I'm going to do five days of workouts this week. And after three days, I'll check in with them and see how they're doing. And I think when you have someone that's helping keep you accountable as well, I think that's really important. I found that being a part of teams, your teammates and your coaches keep you accountable. And I think that's what I bring to life coaching, even one-on-one or group coaching.
[00:24:50] Louise: Beautiful.
[00:24:51] Kim: So, Sara, how would people get in touch with you if they're interested in working with you or learning more?
[00:24:56] Sara: SaraDoellCoaching.com is where you can find me and @SaraDoellCoaching is the handle for just about all of my social media.
[00:25:04] Kim: And Sara, can you spell that for us?
[00:25:06] Sara: Sara? No, H. S A R A D O E L L coaching.com.
[00:25:13] Kim: SaraDoellCoaching.com Fabulous. And before I let you off the hot seat, I just want to make sure, is there anything that I should have asked, but I didn't?
[00:25:22] Sara: [I did just want to say one thing about overall movement. Is that we all have limitations, you know, emotional limitations, mental limitations, physical limitations, but no matter what, finding a way to move your body. I just find it to be so very important.
[00:25:40] Kim: Absolutely. So, Sara, are you ready for the ever fun, ever popular Lightening Round?
[00:25:47] Sara: I'm scared.
[00:25:49] Kim: Sara, what is the best part of working out?
[00:25:58] Sara: I just said you don't have to be sore when you're working out. But for me, it's the day after, when I'm really sore. And I'm like, "Oh my God, I worked really hard yesterday." And I love waking up sore if I'm being honest.
[00:26:10] Kim: Okay. It's a choice.
[00:26:11] Louise: So, so it's the end of the workout that you like? I like the end too. My favorite part is when it's over.
[00:26:19] Kim: Alright the best part of the meal?
[00:26:20] Sara: Ooh. All of it. Okay. I have to pick a part.
[00:26:24] Kim: No you don't, the best part of the meal is all of it. That's awesome.
[00:26:26] Sara: Oh, I think it's the first bite. Like when it's still, like, if it's something that's supposed to be like nice and warm. That first bite. MMMMMM, Yeah. That's it.
[00:26:35] Kim: Yeah.
[00:26:36] Nikki: Kim is there with you.
[00:26:37] Kim: Totally there with you. Totally cause it's that mindful eating, right? It's that awareness of what we just put in our mouths and that, and there's sometimes when you do that and you're like, "Oh yeah, I'm done."
[00:26:47] Sara: Yup.
[00:26:47] Louise: Uh, no.
[00:26:51] Nikki: What??
[00:26:53] Kim: Okay. Well, we can, we can aim for that sometimes. Alright. Alright. What is the best part of the day?
[00:26:59] Sara: The morning. Absolutely the morning. I love the quiet of the morning when you get up, no one else is awake yet. You have a cup of coffee. You meditate, you journal. Like the morning, I wish morning happened all day.
Tuesday Jul 28, 2020
Tuesday Jul 28, 2020
Episode 1 - Our origin story. In this episode, pull up a chair and get to know all the parts of the best parts and how we came to be. It wasn't that long ago we all walked into a room to begin our Courageous Living Coach certification and from these common points of contact, the five of us have forged a new family together. We have created a space of safety, vulnerability, curiosity, and love, which gives us permission to fully own who we are. The best parts are all the parts.
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[00:00:00] Sara: I was wondering where the hell are the other two people.
[00:00:02] Laura: It’s a little different.
[00:00:03] Nikki: There should be a book.
[00:00:05] Kim: This episode brought to you by the letter "F."
[00:00:08] Laura: Hi, I'm Laura.
[00:00:16] Sara: Hi, I'm Sara.
[00:00:17] Kim: And I'm Kim.
[00:00:18] Nikki: This is Nikki
[00:00:19] Louise: And I'm Louise.
[00:00:21] Kim: Hi, and welcome to the Best Parts Podcast, where we invite you to pull up a chair and think about your best parts, which are all your parts.
[00:00:30] Nikki: Hello everyone. And welcome to our very first episode of the best parts. Let's start with a little origin story time. Five women walked into a room with 60 other women. This was back in January of 2020, when you could still hug strangers with their permission. It was the kickoff in-person retreat for the courageous living coaching certification program. And that's where our story together begins. At the retreat, we found out who we would be masterminding with.
[00:00:58] Nikki: And the five of us became the magnificent seven. More about that one later. While we were there together, we didn't get to really know each other. And when we got home, the program began in earnest we dove into the intensity of training, which was coaching, being coached, learning, making mistakes. And most importantly, to our story connecting.
[00:01:18] Nikki: And from this common points of contact, the five of us have forged a new family together. We have created a space of safety, vulnerability, curiosity, and love, which gives us permission to fully own who we are. The best parts are all the parts. And because of these women, I have come to see that being different isn't wrong. Every person on the planet is different with unique points of view and experiences. The strength comes from owning who you are, your thoughts, your actions, and your beliefs, and connecting to others in a genuine, loving way. I'm going to ask you all to hop in your way, way back machines and go back to Petaluma in January before COVID, before quarantine, back to where we all met at that awesome retreat.
[00:01:59] Nikki: When you were walking into that room or even getting on the plane, what was going on with you?
[00:02:04] Sara: I walked into that room and I was like, "Holy crap. I love this. These are my people. I am surrounded by women that are like-minded. And I can't wait to figure out who I'm going to connect with. And someday I want to be in charge of one of these groups. I was like lit up and on fire from the beginning. It was awesome.
[00:02:24] Nikki: It showed Sara. We could tell that you were like, "I am here, I'm ready to be in charge. And I Iove you all."
[00:02:31] Louise: Yeah. Freaked me out.
[00:02:33] Kim: Yeah, me too. For sure. For sure.
[00:02:36] Sara: You're welcome.
[00:02:37] Laura: Was I the only one not happy to be there?
[00:02:40] Kim: Maybe. Tell us more about that, Laura.
[00:02:42] Laura: So first of all, I would, I'm actually like Sara, in this regard. I would have preferred to be in charge rather than actually be there trying to meet people individually. Meeting people individually is really hard for me. I would rather be on a stage and speaking in front of 500 people than in a cocktail party. And this situation felt more like a cocktail party. And I was super uncomfortable.
[00:03:01] Kim: Yeah. I, well, I meet you on the uncomfortable part and I too am more comfortable in front of a group. I'm okay one-on-one but if I don't know the individuals and there's a large group of people, it's really intimidating. And I also set myself up to have a roommate and I've never had a roommate that I'm not married to.
[00:03:19] Kim: So that was really kind of intimidating too. Thankfully she ended up to be awesome. Big shout out to my lovely Lori, but it, it was, it was scary. And I, yeah, I mean, a little bit of me would have preferred to have been in that role of leader. But when I, when I was given that opportunity to lead the group in a little line dance -
[00:03:44] Nikki: Oh, the dancing.
[00:03:46] Laura: That's right! You weren't so thrilled about that.
[00:03:50] Kim: Oh, that was like, it took me a little bit by surprise, and I was still, you know, having a moment of, "Oh my God, am I here?"
[00:03:56] Nikki: Well, and it was, for me, it was funny because I packed and repacked so many times because I was like, what are people going to be wearing? Like is it as warm as Florida? And it's January, but they said, Petaluma's cool. And what do I do? And how am I going to fit in? What if I'm wearing the wrong thing? What if I bring all the sweatshirts and it's 80 degrees? And so, I had a lot of "fitting in" anxiety before I got there and then I walked into the room and I was like, “Oh, okay.” But kind of like Sara, these are my people. I feel like I belong here. I don't know where yet but thank goodness I am here. So that walking in a room and looking for somebody to make eye contact with you with the same level of terror, right? Like who is exactly as scared as I am right now because we're best friends.
[00:04:34] Kim: Yes.
[00:04:35] Laura: What was it like for you to walk in the room, Louise?
[00:04:37] Louise: Uh, what the fuck am I doing here? Honestly, I beelined for a corner. I think I stood in the corner ... I don't do crowds. I am like the introverted introvert, right? And so, walking into a room with only a handful of Canadians? So I don't even know, I’ve never been to California.
[00:05:01] Louise: Like, I don't even know what the hell is going on, questioning why I'm even in there, but knowing somewhere deep down inside, this was the right thing for me. But when you guys are talking about the memories and the things that went on that weekend, it's like, I have very little recollection until somebody says something and I go, oh yeah, I think I remember that. I was all inside. The only thing I could think of was get out of your corner and go talk to someone, anyone!
[00:05:27] Sara: I was the exact opposite of that, Louise. I was like, I'm going to move my chair between every session and sit next to someone new and make sure that every single person in this place I talked to, and then I have a connection with, and yeah, I was so opposite.
[00:05:43] Nikki: It's like classic introvert extrovert, right? Like if you need –
[00:05:47] Kim: Oh my God, Yes!
[00:05:48] Nikki: You understand the difference. This is a perfect way to do that.
[00:05:51] Kim: Well, and it's so funny, Sara. I remember the time when you pulled your chair up near to where I was sitting, my inclination was to pull away. Not because of you, because I was like, "Oh my God, she's gonna make me fucking talk."
[00:06:06] Kim: I was just trying to process. It was totally, it was so funny.
[00:06:14] Laura: It wasn't personal though.
[00:06:16] Kim: It was not personal. I really wanted to get to know you, but I was terrified because your personality is so big and beautiful that it was like, "Oh my God, what do I do with it? I can't measure up to that."
[00:06:28] Sara: Yes, you can.
[00:06:29] Nikki: But isn't that interesting though, because it, it was. She's different than me and I have to measure up, but really Kim, you are such a beautiful human being just as you are that I would never want you to be Sara. I'm glad Sara is Sara, but I, I don't want you to be her because that that'd be weird.
[00:06:45] Sara: The world, can only handle one of me!
[00:06:48] Nikki: True story.
[00:06:49] Kim: True story that's exactly what went through my head.
[00:06:51] Kim: I think that's what is so cool about this whole process is the learning that no matter how we show up, we are the most beautiful selves that we are. And that's what's really cool. It's like we're taking this little experiment called the magnificent seven.
[00:07:09] Louise: With five of us, yeah.
[00:07:10] Kim: With five of us and taking it beyond the five of us.
[00:07:14] Nikki: Well, and I promise we would explain why we're the magnificent seven, even though there's five.
[00:07:19] Louise: I'm still waiting for the other two people to show up.
[00:07:21] Kim: It's my imaginary friends, David and Kathy. Yeah. Okay.
[00:07:25] Nikki: Actually, not that interesting of a story, but I feel like we have made it interesting because of how we are about it.
[00:07:31] Laura: I was going to say, I'd never had this concern. So, you all go ahead and tell the story. I got it immediately.
[00:07:37] Kim: Sorry, Laura. It's because it's because it's your parts. Your parts take up the two extra.
[00:07:42] Laura: Yeah, there you go. All my parts.
[00:07:46] Sara: Well, I just remember we were because we're a Marco Polo family and that's how we connect. And I remember Louise getting on Marco Polo and being like, it took me a long time to realize that we were assigned Mastermind Seven. I was wondering where the hell are the other two people?? I laughed so hard.
[00:08:01] Nikki: Do we have to report them?
[00:08:06] Kim: Exactly. Well, and how it happened was we were batting around these ideas and we were thinking about the number seven, because we were group number seven and I just said, “well, there's that movie The Magnificent Seven.” And somehow it stuck, which is a little odd, cause it's a big burly, man, Western.
[00:08:23] Nikki: True story.
[00:08:25] Kim: That that's it. Seriously? It's not interesting, but we make it interesting.
[00:08:31] Nikki: I think it's the word “magnificent”, because we really like stepped into that “magnificent” word. It wasn't about the movie. It was about how freaking awesome our group was.
[00:08:38] Kim: True story on that.
[00:08:39] Laura: It was also about seven. I mean, seven is like a heavenly number and we were like, a heavenly group.
[00:08:45] Nikki: True story.
[00:08:46] Kim: Very true.
[00:08:48] Nikki: Well, I'm going to hop back to something that Sara just mentioned about Marco Polo and the magic of the connection that we have made from there, because that really, even more than our monthly check in times, I personally, I feel like that is how we have created this depth in connection.
[00:09:06] Nikki: And because of that, I'm curious how that magical word, connection and community, how those have changed for you?
[00:09:13] Sara: Honestly, in the last several months, I am 41 years old and I've had a lot of people in my life. As, you know, as we've discussed, I'm an extrovert, I'm a college coach. I have a lot of people that I've connected to.
[00:09:28] Sara: It was through social media or through different organizations. I never had really super close friends until January of 2020 when I met some amazing women. And I would just have to say like, the four of you got me started in this Marco Polo world and I just felt so connected to each of you in a different way. And then to us as a group, I feel like I'm finally at that place that I have really close friendships and connections. And I, it took me 41 years to get there, but maybe it was worth the wait.
[00:10:00] Nikki: It's interesting what you said, because we are connected as a group and I am connected to all of you very individually, but it's never like, "Oh, this one's my best friend today."
[00:10:10] Nikki: You know, it's not, you kind of get that mentality sometimes in groups. Like you kind of pair off here and there, and it's never felt that way for me.
[00:10:18] Sara: Yeah.
[00:10:18] Kim: It's been a beautiful experience for me personally, to not only be able to lean in and be a part of the group, but to really learn how I want to show up and how I want others to show up for me as well. Really deepened some friendships that I have and step outside my comfort zone in all sorts of ways, in terms of building relationships, which is fascinating because I've been doing that primarily from the isolation of my home.
[00:10:47] Nikki: Right?
[00:10:48] Kim: Because we've been doing this, we've been building this during, you know, the first five months of COVID.
[00:10:55] Louise: And Kim, you said something really interesting. There is like that, that you, that we, I think as adults, at least for me anyways, is that we have to learn, right? Like unlearn almost, what it means to be, and have friends as a child, which is very different than having friends, building relationships, and being very intentional as an adult, especially in friendships.
[00:11:21] Louise: And I think that's for me as well, is having that realization and then taking a step back to look at how do I want to show up in a friend relationship? And I never did that before. Like for me, my word for 2020 right was connection.
[00:11:40] Kim: Me too.
[00:11:42] Louise: And I tried, I tried so hard. Yeah. Before CLCC to make friends, like I actually had goals, right?
[00:11:48] Louise: This year 2019, I'm going to make three new friends and I don't know how to do that.
[00:11:55] Nikki: There should be a book.
[00:11:56] Laura: My experience is a little different about friends. I just want to kind of speak into that. I remember when I was a child, my mother saying, "Laura can never have more than one friend at a time because it turns into a fight."
[00:12:07] Laura: And so, I gave up on the whole friend thing a long time ago, and then I had joined a online eating program. And the community that they built was so amazing. And I found myself held and cradled and able to actually deal with my weight for the first time in 50 years. And what was so jaw dropping was to feel a sense of community with other people. These people knew exactly who I was. We had the exact same issue and it was all done online. And this was before COVID. So, I was lucky that I came to this space with, with already having learned how to have adult friends. I had created a story that, "Oh, the reason I have all these friends now is because we're all food addicts and we all get that."
[00:12:54] Laura: But the five of you or the five of us, the four of you are not food addicts. So, it allowed me to grow even further into my ability and give me more confidence that I actually could make friends as an adult. I was lucky that I already have a slate of friends, but this has been even more beautiful because it shows me that I can figure this out outside of, you know, having an addiction, as the case may be. So, it's, it's just been a beautiful experience.
[00:13:21] Sara: One thing I wanted to say that you brought from your other program hit me so deep in my heart. When you said you have learned to "come all the way in and sit all the way down." And that is what we are doing in this group. And that's how I feel about all of us is we've come all the way in. We've sat all the way down and we want to teach other people to do that too.
[00:13:43] Nikki: Well, and part of that for me was, “Oh, we can make friends as grownups.” This is cool and they're deep and they're important. And for me, this space is a place that I have learned to trust that I can be seen. And that I am seen, and I am loved. Because I used to feel like I would have to prove myself like, "Oh, I'm, I'm worthy of being part of the group. I'm worthy of you seeing me. I'm worthy to show up here." And so, then I had to prove to myself as well that I was worthy of all those things. And then what mattered was that people didn't show up for me then that meant that I wasn't loved. I wasn't important. And I wasn't truly connected. And the most powerful thing that Sara said to me, and every time I talk about it, I tear up because I never would have thought that her looking at me and saying, "I see you," would have been a pivot point for me in relationship.
[00:14:35] Nikki: Because when I felt seen, I was all the way in and sitting all the way down, because I'm like, they know me here. And they accept me, and they love me.
[00:14:46] Kim: Okay. How many other people were sitting there? Nodding their heads along as Nikki was talking? Right? I would serious like, yes, all that. Absolutely.
[00:14:57] Sara: I hope most people listening to this too, that are nodding their head. Like, “Yeah, I get that.”
[00:15:02] Nikki: Well, and it was a realization I couldn't have, literally, until Sara said, "I see you." I had no idea that that's what I needed.
[00:15:09] Louise: And you know, and that feeds into this idea that we had about the best parts and having a place with our community, with our group. Having a place in the world where we get to be all of our parts without having to change. Without having to be judged, without having any other things tied to that. We have a space and we've created a community amongst ourselves where we get to be all of our parts whenever...whenever we want. And I think for me, that's like this space is something that I don't get anywhere else in my life. Because I'm always feeling like I'm being judged, or judging myself.
[00:16:00] Louise: And this is a place, a space, a time for myself to really start to look at all of my parts and, and not want to change any of it.
[00:16:19] Nikki: You got to be curious, right? You get to be curious about them instead of judging, when something comes up.
[00:16:26] Kim: As we started the conversation about whether or not to even do this podcast together, when we landed on this idea of “The Best Parts” I knew I was a hundred percent all in. Because not only do I feel so much the same, I am excited about having somebody listen in and hear that all their parts are beautiful because it's true, listener. All your parts are beautiful. And hopefully through this journey that you take with us over time, you'll get to know us better.
[00:16:57] Kim: And those that we have on the podcast too. Really see how you can lean into that even further, like we're learning to do as our lovely little community.
[00:17:08] Sara: Mic drop.
[00:17:13] Louise: Laura, did you drop your mic?
[00:17:14] Laura: I already dropped it. Literally. Not in the like cool sort of kick ass way, but I've dropped it, I don't know, three or four times this morning?
[00:17:22] Nikki: You had the premature mic drop.
[00:17:24] Kim: Oh, that sounds painful. That's for another episode,
[00:17:29] Laura: I was going to say, where are we going here, ladies?
[00:17:36] Nikki: Tune in next season!
[00:17:39] Nikki: So, in talking about connection and especially reflecting on what has been going on for the whole world this year, I mean, talk about new experiences. Occasionally I'll go, “did COVID happen just so I can connect to people?” I mean, realistically, I know it didn't, but t I'm curious to hear what comes up for you, when you step or are pushed outside of that comfort zone, into these new experiences?
[00:18:10] Sara: Couple of things, joining CLCC for a long time, I've decided I wanted to be a life coach. I'm a college golf coach. I've coached for 15 years. And I knew that I could reach a broader audience and different people other than 18 to 22-year olds. And so, when I was sitting on my couch in August, I looked at what the program was and I was like, this is what I need to do. And then we go into 2020, the shit show that 2020 is.
[00:18:36] Sara: And if I didn't have CLCC, I don't know how I would be thriving right now. Like I am, I have learned how to work from home, how to connect with my family via Zoom, how to reach out to people I haven't talked to in years. How to make these new friendships with you and with other women in CLCC. And it's because I took that step to hit submit on the computer in August. And I'm just super grateful for this experience.
[00:19:04] Nikki: Well, and who, who could have foreseen, who could have foreseen that this was going to happen. In January, we didn't even have a clue.
[00:19:13] Sara: Right. And now we have murder Hornets.
[00:19:16] Louise: You have murder hornets!
[00:19:18] Sara: Oh that's right. Not in Canada
[00:19:20] Louise: Yet.
[00:19:22] Kim: The border has been closed to them as well.
[00:19:25] Nikki: That's really why it's closed.
[00:19:26] Kim: Seriously, really should have gotten up there sooner. It's so interesting because I do recognize how much I'm thriving during this time. I am finally living the life the way that I feel like life, my life, should be lived. And I feel really blessed. I recognize my privilege in these moments.
[00:19:46] Kim: I'm working really hard. It's not that life is easy, but I'm able to lean in, in a way that I've never been able to do before. And in terms of the question that Nikki posed with what happens to us with new experiences, Once I'm over that hump and once I'm into the new experience, whether I'm pushed or whether I took the leap myself, that's when my wings are open.
[00:20:09] Kim: It's like the getting to the edge of the cliff, and staring over the side? I can stay there forever. And I'm really glad when I take the leap or I'm pushed, because that's when I get to soar. And so, when I think of new experiences, I think of, I try to get myself to that point of thinking of you're gonna soar.
[00:20:29] Kim: You get to open your wings and feel the air underneath them. Just go for it. Cause it's a great feeling. But getting to that point can be really, really hard.
[00:20:39] Laura: I'm noticing with new experiences such as CLCC or when I decided to join the online food program, they're parts of me that want to actually do the thing, right?
[00:20:49] Laura: Nobody talked my hand behind my back to force me to get on a plane, to go to Petaluma. And then there are parts of me that are really resistant to change. And I think that's why I shared with you guys, the coming all the way in and sitting all the way down. I realized several months into our program that I had not sat all the way down and I wanted to.
[00:21:05] Laura: I had to go get a COVID test for some medical procedures that I need to have done. And I noticed some anxiety coming up. And I just I've learned through the work that I do that rather than me trying to ignore that part, that's really anxious and that anxiety I'm better off addressing it. And so, I just worked with that anxiety so that I could get through the COVID test, which wasn't as bad as I feared it would be.
[00:21:32] Laura: And it was just really important for me to be able to learn to sit with and feel those emotions as opposed to trying to shove them away or kicking them to the curb.
[00:21:41] Nikki: Well, and it's, it's. If you don't recognize them, acknowledge them, see them, they fight, right. They're coming up. The more you shut them down, the more they're like trying to push back to the surface.
[00:21:53] Sara: I have a podcaster I listen to that he always says, "feel the fuck out of your feelings". And that is something that I live my life by. And I think that's the thing with new experiences, all these new feelings come up and it's like, how am I supposed to feel these? And you just got to walk right into them. Get to the other side.
[00:22:10] Nikki: And sometimes you don't even know what they are, right? You're feeling something you don't recognize. And that can be hard. Like if you don't have a name for it, it's like, I don't even know what this is yet. And the way we learn is by leaning in.
[00:22:23] Sara: Yeah, absolutely.
[00:22:24] Louise: So, you know, it's, it's interesting because you know, this, all of these, I don't know, feelings, emotions, I don't know what you want to call them. Like, a lot of that is new for me. And I'm still learning how to, to handle new experiences in, in that area. Sometimes I got it. Like sometimes the new experience is like, yeah, let's go. Right. Like I think of you, Laura and you're parasailing and I'm like, yeah.
[00:22:54] Louise: Yeah, that's awesome. And then. And then other times it's like, I like, like, right. Like I don't, it, it seems much smaller, but yet so much bigger. Yeah. And it is that, that standing on the edge of the cliff, like Kim mentioned, and I don't know, for me, I'm still learning. What are those experiences that it's easy to just fall forward and just right just soar? And other times I am like, glued. I am cemented to that cliff and I cannot for the life of me, right lift one foot off the ground. And so, I feel like I'm still learning what that is. I feel sometimes so young. So, I don't know what the word is. Immature? Maybe that's not even the right word, but like, just so little in, in my experiences, in the knowledge that I have.
[00:23:57] Louise: Cause we build on that and we go and, and I'm, I'm still learning a lot of it and that's okay. But it is, it's a very interesting place to be. And COVID’s really like the quarantine. I'm not sure that the world would have been so accessible to me as an introvert if we didn't have quarantine.
[00:24:20] Kim: Amen. And by the way, the whole soaring thing, when we're all together and you all go parasailing, cause I know you're excited about it? My feet are firmly fucking planted on the ground.
[00:24:34] Laura: What's with all these "Fs?"
[00:24:35] Kim: This episode brought to you by the letter "F"
[00:24:38] Nikki: Oh, I was going to say this episode brought to you by the "Eff Bomb."
[00:24:42] Louise: It's all for you, Sara.
[00:24:45] Sara: I'm so happy right now.
[00:24:50] Nikki: So interesting. The challenges that COVID has brought in also being able to recognize the gifts of it and the ways that we adapt connection because of it and all of the new experiences because of it, we allow the struggle, but we also can see the gift and that's really recognizing all the parts. It's not easy.
[00:25:09] Nikki: It's not always fun, but you can still have a good time. You can still have a virtual dance party. You can still, you know, celebrate the moments that you can find to celebrate in there. And speaking of celebration, let’s move into the lightening round, ladies.
[00:25:26] Kim: Oh yeah. Yeah.
[00:25:29] Nikki: Rules for the group lightening round. Just shout your answer out after I give you the topics. Everybody good? Good. All right, here we go. Starting out with controversial toilet paper over, under?
[00:25:44] Louise: Over.
[00:25:45] Sara: Over.
[00:25:46] Laura: Over.
[00:25:47] Nikki: Ooh, universal over. I don't anticipate that happening again.
[00:25:51] Sara: Under is not even a thing.
[00:25:52] Kim: I am the person that if I go into somebody's house and it's under, I flip it.
[00:25:57] Sara: Same me too.
[00:25:59] Kim: I just gave you a high five, Sara.
[00:26:01] Louise: I totally do, Yes.
[00:26:03] Nikki: I'm going to be that person and say it's the right way, because that's the way the toilet paper roll was patented.
[00:26:09] Kim: It's absolutely true!
[00:26:11] Nikki: Yes. So, I'm that person right now.
[00:26:14] Louise: You use less squares when it's over.
[00:26:17] Kim: Oh see. I don't even know about that, but...
[00:26:20] Louise: I'm just saying, all right. I do my part for the environment.
[00:26:25] Nikki: Sweet. We appreciate that. Second question: top or bottom?
[00:26:31] Sara: Top
[00:26:33] Louise: Top
[00:26:36] Laura: Yes, yes.
[00:26:39] Nikki: Leaving that to everybody's imagination what that was in reference to. Just so y'all know.
[00:26:43] Louise: Kim?
[00:26:44] Kim: Depends. Depends. It depends.
[00:26:48] Nikki: I'm just going to wait until you stop saying it depends.
[00:26:50] Kim: It depends.
[00:26:51] Nikki: All right. What are we on? Number three: the book or the movie?
[00:26:57] Kim: Book.
[00:26:57] Laura: Book.
[00:26:57] Louise: Book.
[00:26:58] Sara: Absolutely the book. Yeah.
[00:27:00] Nikki: Nice. I got two that we've all agreed on. I don't know how that happens. Question number four. Oh, and this is a tricky one Puffs Plus or Kleenex.
[00:27:13] Laura: What?
[00:27:16] Nikki: The lotion on the Kleenex or do you like the not lotion on the
[00:27:18] Laura: Kleenex? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Lotion,
[00:27:20] Sara: Lotion, lotion.
[00:27:22] Kim: No lotion, please. Because I will inadvertently use them to clean my glasses and then I'm screwed.
[00:27:30] Nikki: I don't wear glasses. So that never occurs to me.
[00:27:33] Louise: What about a hanky?
[00:27:34] Kim: What? How old are you?
[00:27:37] Sara: Are you my grandfather? What, a hanky?
[00:27:43] Louise: That's the best word. Hanky. I'm going to say it many times today.
[00:27:48] Nikki: Now I feel like I want my, my fifth question to be. Do you call it hanky panky or sex?
[00:27:54] Sara: Sex.
[00:27:54] Laura: Sex.
[00:27:54] Kim: I don't care what you call it.
[00:27:59] Louise: Kim can't even say it.
[00:28:02] Nikki: I wanted to see how red I could get Kim with that last question.
[00:28:04] Kim: I can't even breathe from the last one.
[00:28:07] Nikki: Kim, what was the last question in case it didn't get picked up on the microphone? What was it?
[00:28:13] Kim: You call it hanky panky or sex?
[00:28:17] Nikki: Woo. Kim's owning it!
[00:28:19] Kim: Oh, yeah. Well, you can't see me. So, I have no issues. You want to talk about sex, baby? I can do that. You can't see me
[00:28:28] Nikki: Did anyone else hear Salt 'n' Peppa in their head besides me?
[00:28:32] Kim: I heard it as I said it too.
[00:28:33] Nikki: So, alright. On that note, I think that was five. Everyone, thank you so much for joining us for this first episode of The Best Parts.
[00:28:42] Nikki: We're glad you're here. We're glad you're joining us to connect and explore what that means. Wherever you are, whatever you're doing, have a great day! And remember that all your parts are important. Thanks for joining us for it, The Best Parts.
Monday Jul 20, 2020
Monday Jul 20, 2020
Here's the story of five lovely coaches, each one with her own unique worldview and each one wanting to share themselves with the others. They came together to create a brand new show. Join Kim Romain, Sara Doell, Laura Lively, Nikki Baker Wulf, and Louise Neil as we come together each week to entertain, inform, engage, and inspire our listeners through stories, experiences, and reflections about the best parts of life as a woman.
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[00:00:00] Kim: Here's the story of five lovely coaches, each one with her own unique worldview and each one wanting to share themselves with the others. They came together to create a brand new show.
[00:00:30] Nikki: We have created a space of safety, vulnerability, curiosity, and love, which gives us permission to fully own who we are.
[00:00:37] Laura: I love the fact that we created a community. And that we want to create a larger community so that other people can start to lean into a space where they feel like they have friends, as an adult.
[00:00:47] Louise: Having a place in the world where we get to be all of our parts without having to change without having to be judged without having any other things tied to that. We, we have a space and we've created a community amongst ourselves where we get to be all of our parts. Whenever, whenever we want.
[00:01:16] Nikki: Curious, right? You get to be curious about them instead of judging, when something comes up.
[00:01:21] Sara: You have learned to come all the way in and sit all the way down.
[00:01:24] Kim: It's amazing. Something always happens when we're together. And we want to share that something with you.
[00:01:31] Nikki: Well, and who, who could have foreseen. When we all said yes to CLCC, who could have foreseen that this was going to happen in January, we didn't even have a clue.
[00:01:43] Sara: Right. And now we have murder Hornets.
[00:01:46] Louise: You have murder hornets.
[00:01:47] Sara: Oh, that's right. Not in Canada. Mic drop.
[00:01:54] Kim: Whether it's relationships, career health, food, love money, you name it. Most of us have felt different at some point in our lives, but not here. Here, we invite you to pull up a chair and be one of us.
[00:02:09] Nikki: The most powerful thing, and every time I talk about it, I tear up because I never would have thought that her looking at me and saying, “I see you” would have been a pivot point for me in relationship.
[00:02:21] Kim: Join us as we come together each week. Our hope is to entertain, inform, engage, and inspire our listeners through stories, experiences, and reflections about the best parts of life as a woman.
[00:02:34] Laura: Hi, I'm Laura.
[00:02:35] Sara: Hi, I'm Sara
[00:02:36] Kim: And I'm Kim.
[00:02:37] Nikki: This is Nikki.
[00:02:39] Louise: And I'm Louise.
[00:02:40] Kim: We look forward to sharing more with you soon on The Best Parts podcast, where we celebrate all the parts.