E2 | Living as the REAL You

Do you find that you say "yes" when you actually want to say "no" but are not sure how to do it in a way that is authentic to who you are and what's important to you? 

In today's 20 minute episode of Getting to Unstuck  called "Living as the Real You", Christal Duncan, Carol Vickers and Colin Kingsmill discuss how to how to be able to set boundaries, stop saying "yes" when you really mean "no", and offer some simple tools to avoid burnout that you can use right now. 

Whole Human Coaching works with leaders and change makers to help reclaim their humanity while growing themselves and their leadership. Find us at https://wholehumancoaching.com

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Transcript

Colin KIngsmill: [00:00:00] There we are. Hey,
Carol Vickers: guys. Hello.
Christal Duncan: Good morning. Good morning. Well, if you are just
joining us, welcome to another episode of getting to unstack with the
three of us here from whole human coaching. My name is Crystal
Duncan and I will be kind of our host for today. I will let everyone else
introduce themselves.
Oh, I'm coming to you live from my office in Toronto, Canada.
Carol Vickers: And I'm Carol Vickers, and I am joining from the other
side of the country. I am in Victoria, BC, and I'm very grateful for Daylight
Savings being done, because today it's not dark. I can see blue sky.
Yeah, but it's,
Colin KIngsmill: it's like dark at four o'clock though, isn't it?
Carol Vickers: Like that's true. There are, there's always trade offs,
Colin. Yeah, there are. That's
Colin KIngsmill: true. As with everything. You're right. Yeah. And I'm
Colin Kingsmill coming to you from Nova Scotia. So we are across
Canada [00:01:00] and live. Yeah,
Christal Duncan: that's great. I'd say we're going to be talking about
living as the real you. And as always, we're going to be having a 20
minute conversation.
So we're going to be talking about some of the things that you, that could
be indications of us that this is maybe us. And this could be something
that is coming. We see coming up in our lives. We're going to be talking
about the possibilities around it and some things that you can be doing.
Right from the time that you are finished this conversation with us that
you can begin to use in your own life to help in Whatever context it's
going to be the most helpful But when we are talking about some living
as the real you I'm wondering Carol if you can help us get some Carol or

Colin actually if you can help us have some Definition around how we're
approaching that today.
Colin KIngsmill: Sure Sure. So I think the first step, right, is recognizing
that you, you might not be living in integrity or not, might not be living
your real you. And there's some telltale signs that you can look out for,
right? So [00:02:00] some of them might be things like self doubt. People
pleasing for sure. You know, focusing on on on other people's needs
instead of yours and maybe having difficulty setting boundaries.
It manifests when you begin to compare yourself to others when perhaps
you're you're not. Showing your full self or you're hiding things about
who you, who you really are other ways that it might show up you, you
might stay quiet in situations, or you might also be triggered and, and,
and have a, have a challenge with that.
It can show up in things like self image. Lack of humility, which is an
interesting one and really not living for yourself. So kind of on somebody
else's path or living someone else's dream or you know, I call it putting
your eggs in somebody else's basket. So those are, those are some of
the telltale signs that you may not be living.
in full integrity and [00:03:00] to, you know, ultimately to your full
potential, really.
Carol Vickers: And it's often a niggling thing, isn't it, Colin? It's
something that we kind of get this sense that something isn't quite right.
Yeah. And it's hard to identify to begin with, because we're saying yes to
things that we think we should.
We're moving ahead in a way that we think we should be doing, and
there's just something missing. And that's where I think that, that idea of
integrity comes in. And integrity is one of those kind of loaded words. I
don't mean that we're calling into question people's values or their worth.
But it is, if we look at it from the definition of integrity, integrity is being
whole.
So if you were if your life is chipping away at your whole you, then you're
going to run into challenges. But there are ways to, ways for us to, once
we recognize it, we can begin to see ways to be able to fix it. [00:04:00]
So, Discovering what our boundaries are, stating them clearly to the
people that we work with and we, and we live with, and it's that idea of

self care, not being selfish, but taking self care, and that's carving out
time.
It's having some moments when it's just for you in a day. And those
sometimes are small pieces, aren't they? Yeah. When do you get your
morning coffee? What do you do, Krystal, in the mornings? Because I
know you have a great morning
Christal Duncan: routine. Yeah, I'm a big, I'm a big morning person
much to the chagrin sometimes of the people that live with me.
I'm really a morning person. Yeah, and, you know, my morning routine
started back when I was I've always had a bit of a morning routine, but
back when I was also the head of an international charity, I was traveling
a lot and I was at that time I was a young single mom of a young child.
Living between two countries, it was really complicated and I needed to
build what I think, Carol, I've heard [00:05:00] you refer to them as like
little islands of sanity in my life. I could, you know, have that place where
at least there was something that was when I came back into that place,
even though it was a different place every day, there was a space in me
that when I came back, that was a space where I could come just quiet
myself and it's evolved and changed and had different focuses over the
years.
For me now, it's a combination of. Meditation and reading and of
movement. I am, I work out in the mornings in some way, shape or form,
not even the same every day. I could run, do yoga, Pilates, whatever. I
am actually curious to kind of just touch back on something that we
talked about and just helping people understand a little bit more about
what it means when we say to have an, to be an integrity or to be whole.
I think that. If people come from any kind of a background where those
words could be very heavy, it could be very heavy, very heavy. It could
have judgment or [00:06:00] expectation sitting on them. What. What
would be some helpful ways that we could help people understand what
that, what that means and how they could actually maybe have a strong
sense of it?
Colin KIngsmill: I think I think oh, sorry carol. No, please. I think I think
it really does show up in the body actually you know when when you so
so we mentioned all those things before like self doubt and boundaries

comparison and stuff you If you're if you can stay attuned to how that is
feeling in your gut, right, or if you can stay attuned to things like anxiety
or depression or reaching out for coping mechanisms to, to, to, to, to, to,
to deal with those pings that you might have in your stomach.
I heard somebody yesterday, guys, that. That I thought was amazing. He
said, your, your body is a loudspeaker and, and and he was saying, you
know, if something is repressed, it will be [00:07:00] expressed in illness.
And I thought that was so interesting. And it's, and it's so connected to
this, that, that. The lack of integrity, and it doesn't mean you're a liar, it is
you not living who you are, right?
Manifests when you're, when you're off of that center, it manifests in the
body in a plethora of ways. So if you don't recognize what we were
talking about before, like, you know, staying quiet or being triggered or
self image stuff, if you don't recognize that, start closer to home and just
feel your body and, and, and.
And what it's telling you. I love this idea of about it being a loudspeaker
because I know my own journey of coming to a place of integrity. I
remember all of those years and Carol was my coach for 10 plus years.
She remembers them too, where I'm like, I'm like, you could just feel
something's off and it's not quite right.
And it's just, it's hard and it's, and you're not in a flow state. So question,
but there's all these little hints, [00:08:00] right? If you're, if you feel it,
check it. If you're not in flow, check it. If there's resistance, dig deeper.
You know, don't, I think what we're saying is don't plow through it. Don't,
don't keep going in this place of off centeredness, or lack of wholeness,
or lack of integrity.
Listen to your body. Well,
Carol Vickers: integrity as we, as we bandied around in common
language, it is something that people think, Oh, it is my, it's how people
will see me, my integrity. I'm being my word. And that is true. But I had a
very wise person tell me years and years ago that our first integrity is to
ourselves.
So we need to be whole for ourselves. ourselves before we can be
whole for anyone else. And really if we're in that state of not missing
anything, if we are that [00:09:00] complete sphere, which is what

integrity is, is whole and complete, then we've got the resilience. We've
got the resources to be able to be there for other people.
Because where what we're talking about is that if we're not being our
real selves, chances are we're trying to be something for someone else.
And that's the other way is to look at who, where, where do we feel that
we actually can be our true selves? And ask the question, who do you
feel your most authentic self around?
So, if I was to ask you both that question, who is it that makes you feel
like you are living yourself when you're with them? I've got to turn my
power on here. I'm just about to
Colin KIngsmill: lose my camera. I mean, certainly, certainly, certainly it
took me a very, very long time to get to that place. Right. And now it's
interesting because once you begin to, [00:10:00] once you begin to live
in that place, the right people.
Come closer, right? And the, the, the, the ones that, that, that weren't
move away and they, they, they disappear off into the distance. So I
mean, certainly for me, it's friend, close friends since, since we moved,
since we moved back to Canada and, and, and the community that we're
creating here close to nature and the ocean and things like that.
That, that, it, it, it, it, it, it almost happens automatically once you
redefine those parameters, you know, the, the, the, I think the law of
attraction begins to set in and, and and, but let's put it in
Carol Vickers: the context of the workplace, because what if we can
choose our friends, to some degree we can choose our family, but what
about the workplace?
What about, and I'm sure people who are [00:11:00] listening, there's
like, yeah, I like my friends, but when I go to work, that's when I can't be
myself. Yeah. What, what do we do there? What are the tools there?
Christal Duncan: So this is an interesting. This is an interesting thing
because we spend so much of our life at work and I have worked in
many places where I have, it has not felt safe for me to actually either
speak up to or to advocate for myself or to even just advocate for what I
felt was what was the best choice in that time.

It was not fun. To not feel safe, right? It is not fun to fear judgment, to
fear repercussions, to fear that your, your future may be hanging in the
balance on that. And so for me, when you ask that question about, you
know, who, how do I feel the most whole I wouldn't have been able to
answer this in the past being back at that place, but now having been so.
Spend [00:12:00] spending so much time asking myself difficult
questions and learning to be with myself I would say that I feel the most
whole with with me. Like I do feel at home in who I am and doesn't mean
I was like love that but I do feel at home with that and But when you are
in the workplace and you're not yet in that place, like change is an inside
job, right?
So we cannot necessarily control us. And we know this and all the
clients that we coach and through everything from just making decisions,
day to day decisions to crisis management, that you can't choose the
circumstances that come to you necessarily. You can't necessarily
choose the people that you have to.
You have that you get tossed into the same boat with the only thing you
can choose. It's who you're going to be in the middle of it. That's your
question.
Carol Vickers: And that's where I think what we've talked about with our
clients and we talk about together is that [00:13:00] personal toolkit, that
ability to be able to pull on certain things.
Yeah. Colin, what are the pieces of it that people
Colin KIngsmill: could use? Right. I mean, when we talk about a
personal toolkit. Or leadership toolkit or or really any sort of navigational
instrument, right? It's it's it's the first. The first part of it is really
understanding the destination where you're going, right?
So crystal those spaces that you spoke about before that were unsafe.
Obviously, those weren't the destination for you, right? Because you
pivoted and you got out of there. So really define, understand the
destination that you want to get to from a career from a career
perspective. Understand. Understand.
Really the elements of your personal brand, your values and your needs.
And, and, and, and, and, and with, with, with the destination, with a

personal brand, with your values and needs defined, you then have one
pillar of, of our, of our whole human coaching tripod, right? Which is, is
how [00:14:00] does that fit into. The rest of the world, you know, so
sense making, right?
And we often counsel people to turn off the news and get informed,
right? Get informed in depth with the things you want to understand, as
opposed to afraid of of the of the messaging that comes through a lot on
on on media. And then the other the other element of that is of the
tripod, right? Is, is understand the business that you're in and how you,
how you mesh with that.
How does your personal brand mesh with their personal brand? And if
there was incongruence, that's a story that you need to listen to, right?
That's a story about, all right, what is the next chapter for me? Right. So,
so, so your own personal toolkit sits on a tripod of, of, of in informed.
analysis of the world that's important to you and, and and how you mesh
with the current organization that you're in.
And you may not, they may not mesh. And then you, then you begin to
design [00:15:00] a different future and, and, and hammer that out. So,
so that, that's really what, what what I think the, the, the to do is.
Carol Vickers: The power in that, I see, is in the design. In that once we
have an opportunity to reflect, and that's part of what is involved in that,
is when you have those niggling thoughts, ooh, something's not right, I'm
not fitting in, then you begin to look.
And then the beauty is that you begin to shift from looking inward. To
looking at what's possible. Yeah, but there is that aspect, first of all, of
know yourself. So there's one tool that you introduced to us this week,
Crystal, which was about learning more about ourselves.
Christal Duncan: Oh yeah. It's a fantastic free tool that anybody can
use.
It's called the high five test and it's it's built off of the concept of what are
your strengths, but even more than that, it's more like, what are your,
[00:16:00] what are your values that are, that. That your strengths are
built on is how I would probably, how I'd probably define it. I don't know
how they define it themselves.

It's a little simple self test that is incredibly accurate. Number one and
really insightful for people because It's, it'll take maybe, I don't know,
seven minutes, maybe for someone to do I've been having some of my
clients do it and then we've been, we've been coaching from that from
the perspective of that, because rather than them using so much energy,
trying to make up for things that they can't control, that are not their
strengths, that are only sucking them dry, that are not filling them with,
you know, that they can't be confident in.
Like what you just said, let's shift our perspective, you know, it's like, and
a tool like that is like, you know, if you, if I was to hold up a piece of
white paper here and there's like one little dot on it, right. And our natural
tendency to describe it would be like it's a black dot rather than it's it's a
piece of, it's, it's an open space.
It's a blank canvas. [00:17:00] Interesting how our perspective is. And so
the whole, the value of, of our work, but the value of anybody's work and
journey is, The gift you give yourself of building. And, and deciding the
perspective and the design that you're going to live with. Yes. Because
Carol Vickers: really, it is what is special about you that you are then
celebrating that gives you a chance to articulate it and look for
opportunities to be that in the world.
Yes. And be that with the people around you because it really is that self
expression that gives us the satisfaction.
Colin KIngsmill: And when you do go there, right, the possibilities then
just really, I think, really expand because when you are living in integrity
or working in integrity as well, the, the, your gifts begin to show up and
shine and can be seen, right?
That's, that's such a special part of this [00:18:00] that, that I think our
society and our culture makes us afraid of, of. discovering those, those,
those gifts are, or they make them, they maybe they make a kind of
makes us complacent, right? Right.
Carol Vickers: It's true. Yeah. So if we were to leave folks who are, who
are listening with one thing that they could do this week that would help
them really establish that sense of self, what would it
Colin KIngsmill: be?

I would say celebrate something you love about yourself. Document it,
put it in your journal or your record, whatever whatever works best for
you and, and celebrate it every day. Begin, you know, start that
celebration of love for what's inside of you. Yeah. That would be mine.
Christal Duncan: It's like Mel Robbins calls it the high five habit.
You know where you stand in the mirror and you give yourself a high
five. I do that. I find that that's really good. I give myself a high five or
sometimes I look myself in the eye and I tell myself something that
[00:19:00] I appreciate about who I am.
Carol Vickers: Yeah. I love the idea of going to someone that you know
and trust and saying, what do you love about me?
Christal Duncan: Yeah.
Carol Vickers: It's a, it's a tricky question to ask. Yeah, it is. But when
you hear it reflected in someone that you respect. It really does fill you
up for who you can be. Yeah. Lovely.
Christal Duncan: Well, we have come to the end of our time. Thank you
both for your time and for thank you for joining us. If you're, if you're here
and you're still here again we're caught our show here is called getting to
unstuck and we are really focused on helping you reclaim your humanity
in life and work.
And if you have any questions or you have any topics that you would like
us to actually touch on please feel free to comment in below the video
and reach out. And we would love to hear feedback from you on what
you would like to have us talk about next until the next time. Have a
fantastic day.
Okay. Bye everybody.
Colin KIngsmill: Bye.