Empowered Ease
Welcome to Empowered Ease, hosted by Jenn Ohlinger—a holistic coach, founder of The Moonflower Collective, and critical care nurse dedicated to revolutionizing women's health. Join us each week as we delve into the transformative stories of healers, health practitioners, and everyday women like you, challenging the patriarchal framework through empowerment and holistic healing. Through engaging storytelling, our podcast highlights each woman's unique journey toward embracing their feminine gifts, trusting their body, and prioritizing their mind, body, and soul. Discover how by empowering ourselves, we can pave the way for stronger relationships and a more balanced world.
Empowered Ease
Liliane de Vries Reclaiming Your Life: Helping Unstoppable Women Find Balance
Hi!! I would love to hear from you!
Imagine reaching the breaking point—crying at the kitchen sink, feeling lost in the life you've built, and walking away from your family for several days just to breathe. This was certified coach Liliane de Vries reality before her extraordinary journey of self-discovery transformed her approach to life, relationships, and purpose.
Liliane, a former oncology nurse turned wellness coach, shares the raw and powerful story of how she took a six-month "sabbatical" from being a wife, mother, and daughter to focus solely on herself. What she discovered in the first hour of this journey changed everything: "I had full permission to look after me. I now had nobody to blame." This simple yet profound revelation became the foundation for her work with unstoppable women who feel overwhelmed, burnt out, and disconnected from their own needs.
Throughout our conversation, Liliane reveals why nurses and healthcare professionals often struggle to prioritize self-care, and how the mindset that "the system owes me" prevents many from taking responsibility for their wellbeing. She explains the crucial difference between happiness (which depends on external circumstances) and joy (an attitude that defies all circumstances), offering practical strategies for cultivating the latter even in challenging environments.
Whether you're a healthcare professional feeling burnt out, someone struggling with boundaries in relationships, or simply seeking more balance and peace in your daily life, Liliana’s insights will resonate deeply. Her mirror exercise for self-acceptance, techniques for recognizing saboteur voices, and perspective on relationships as a "third entity" provide transformative tools you can implement immediately.
Ready to move from surviving to thriving? Discover how asking yourself "What do I need right now?" rather than "What do I need to do?" can be the first step toward reclaiming your joy, purpose, and balance. Connect with Liliane’s free support group for nurses or book a one-on-one call to explore how her coaching might support your journey.
Liliane de Vries
Website: www.lilianedevries.com and www.aliveinhealthcare.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AlivewithLilianedeVries/
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/liliane-devries
Videos: https://www.youtube.com/@alivewithLiliane/videos
Author: The Passionate Nurse: https://www.amazon.ca/Passionate-Nurse-Liliane-Vries/dp/1978194439/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1531858474&sr=1-1&keywords=the+passionate+nurse
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Hello and welcome to Empowered Ease. My guest today is Lillian DeFries. She is a certified coach who works with unstoppable women who want to find more peace and balance in their lives. She is also a Canadian nurse. Welcome, lillian, thank you. Thank you. Glad to be here, jenny. I'm so happy you're here today too. Glad to be here, jenny. I'm so happy you're here today too. Lillian and I met through another nonprofit nursing organization and I happened to set up a one-on-one call and found out Lillian herself is doing a lot of amazing things. So tell us a little bit about that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I started way back as a nurse and then moved into working with my parents in restaurant business. My parents are from France, so we had a French French restaurant and and then did some customer service and management in health, in pharmaceuticals, and it came right back to coaching, which is because I was looking for an answer from nursing. What else could I do? And I think that that's where a lot of nurses answer from nursing. What else could I do? And I think that that's where a lot of nurses are these days.
Speaker 2:What else can I do? And the thing, the common theme that I would hear is I don't know how to do anything else but nursing, and I was like you absolutely do. You just haven't discovered it yet.
Speaker 2:So nursing in itself is so many skills, so many skills, you know, and we think it's only in healthcare and in nursing, but it's. It's definitely not. It's, it's a lot more. So, yeah, I went into, I discovered workplace wellness and health promotion that was the buzzword. Well, you know wellness. And and through that I discovered coaching and decided to get into coaching. And here I was. I remember the first time I started that first week of coaching intense program that I was in. I was sitting there thinking how much I wanted to help other people and I walked out of that room that first week thinking I am so messed up I'm not going to help anybody. I need help, you know. And it was the realization and working through my process that I realized how much I needed to do my work before I could help anybody else.
Speaker 1:So tell me, when you were a nurse, what kind of where did you work? What kind of nursing did you do?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I worked mostly in. I worked in Ontario, in Canada, and I did oncology, nursing. So I had a variety of different like. We did cardiology, we did general medicine, women's health, but mostly it was oncology. Loved it because I kept seeing patients coming back every month for their treatments, got to know them very closely and I was able to, as I say, have every emotion with my patients. I could walk into my rounds and do French can-can dancing with them and the next thing, you know, I'd be pulling the curtain and crying with them. So the the. You know I was already in that coaching mode but I just needed some more skills and refining to know how to use it properly. And on myself first.
Speaker 1:Right, right. That's where we all, well, and we're all still. It's a process, right, never?
Speaker 2:it never stops no, I uh.
Speaker 1:My first job like uh in, I guess you would say wellness was backpacking with troubled teens. It was a therapeutic intervention program and I that was some of the very top therapists out there rocked my world. I was like whoa, I have so much work to do myself. But luckily I felt like I got free therapy working there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's so true, though it's like we think and we're such givers I mean especially nurses right, we're such givers and we care for others, and we forget to look at ourselves and care for what we need. Not what we need to do, but what we need. And that's the big question I ask myself every day what do you know?
Speaker 3:when I'm in that whirlwind it's like okay, calm down, not what I need to do, what do?
Speaker 2:I need right now and that pause, which I think is what coaching is really. It's taking a moment with your, with your coach, and pausing and saying Okay, let me think. Where am I in my life? Am I in the right direction? Am I doing what I want to be doing? Is my heart in a passionate place, or am I just surviving?
Speaker 1:Yeah, is what I wanted, used to want and been driving so hard for still what I want now. Am I still aligned with that purpose?
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure, for sure, and our circumstances change, so our wants and our desires and what we're exposed to changes, and so, therefore, permission to not always know what we want. Sometimes it's just stopping and revisiting and saying is this still what I want, right, yeah, pretty cool.
Speaker 1:I love that. So, tell me working in workplace wellness. Now, did you work in healthcare? Did you work in corporate? What kind of workplace wellness did you do?
Speaker 2:I worked in corporate, believe it or not, I worked in a pharmaceutical. Oh, wow. Well, I worked in a telecommunication company in my training and then I went in pharmaceuticals and, um, and yeah, it was, it was. It was very interesting because, you know, I thought healthcare was so toxic. And then I went to you you know pharmaceuticals and other companies and I thought it's just as toxic it is. You know, everybody's trying to survive and and it's like everybody's got this thing to do for the day or, and they're, they've got this tunnel vision and if anybody comes and cuts off and and interrupts them you know whether it be a call bell from a patient or from a manager who's calling you or whatever then we're disrupted and we, we get all emotional and we start being angry and we don't know how to cope with those emotions. Hence emotional intelligence, positive intelligence, which I'm trained in, it's all those things about what. What are we really trying to accomplish? Because we can have fabulous intentions, but the impact we have is not matching what our intentions are.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So yeah, it's, and I look, you know, and specifically working with nurses, I look at nursing because they're such caring individuals and they don't stop to care for themselves they don't stop to care for themselves.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this is something Lily and I Lily and I have talked about. A lot is like. Nurses are probably some of the least likely people to reach out and take help for themselves, and at times I know over the past they've been some of the unhealthiest people, and it's we we were trying to figure out why here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so. So one of the things that has come across my you know, my path over the 20 plus years that I've been doing this has been, you know, when I asked nurses, why don't you? You know you've got an opportunity here to invest in yourself and and do good for yourself, to take care of yourself and have a partner on your journey. Right, because you don't have to do this alone, alone, you don't have to figure it out alone. And women you know men out there as nurses, but you know I'm talking the the typical woman is like she thinks she has to fix it all herself yeah, and women especially need community to be able to validate ourselves.
Speaker 1:We need other people, we need other women yeah, and we need the sounding board.
Speaker 2:That's why coaching works so powerfully in nursing, and the nurses that I've worked with have walked away like knowing each other for, you know, 20 years working together, and they turn around and go. Well, I didn't know, you knew that, or I didn't know, you thought that way or felt that way, and it was such a wake-up call and I say why don't you invest in yourself? And the response that I get often, often, which, just you know, to this day baffles me, is the system owes me. They should be paying for anything that I need. They owe me and I go. You're absolutely right, the system owes you. First of all, who's the system? That's not a person.
Speaker 2:It's not somebody with you know money in their pocket. Who's the system? Who's running the system and how's that working for you? Waiting for the system to pay for something for you or to look after yourself? Yeah, I look at so many other professionals that I work with in organizations. They all invest in themselves. They don't wait for the system to look after them. So why are nurses doing that? You know why are they doing that and I'll tell you. I think part of the reason is nurses are in this survival. You know this. I call it almost like a war zone building. You know, when you think about the hospital, it's almost like this war zone that you're in and by the time you get to escape for a few hours to go home to your family and you know to rest, you're exhausted and you don't see anything else.
Speaker 1:And overstimulated and you've had no time to yourself all day.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we need to make that happen. You and I both, Jenny we we've made time for ourselves. We forced that time on ourselves, even today.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it took me a long time though it took me some pretty serious health consequences before I opened my eyes and realized like, if I don't do something about this, I'm going to end up one of these patients. And that's what was my wake-up call, because to me that would be hell if I ended up being a patient in one of the ICs I was working in. But I don't know what people need to hear. But I also wonder, like, when I look at nurses, if there's I mean, I think there's so many factors, like you know. I think the people that are drawn to be nurses sometimes are more people pleasers, people who are more likely not all, but I think more likely to neglect themselves in some way. I think there's a high percentage of nurses, like 68, or healthcare workers in general, that have experienced, like childhood trauma, neglect, all those things too, which I think only add to the stress and the exhaustion when you get into the work environment that you're not prepared for. That is like a hundred miles an hour all the time. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Very true, and though nursing is changing with the new generations coming in, they don't have and again, this is a general statement, right, but they don't have that expectation of themselves or even of their surroundings, the way the older nurses do, you know, the more seasoned nurses, and so what we're finding is that nurses are going in, young nurses are going in for a year or two and then leaving because they're not tolerating this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, under 25 is the highest burnout rate and if you think about like after them going and schooling and stuff, they have barely not nothing wrong with that. But they have not been in the profession very long at all. That is that is great. Well, it's scary.
Speaker 2:It's scary for our future if you it is, but does that tell you a little bit about our you know our generations, about how much we tolerate in certain generations and other generations that say, no, this is not happening. This is.
Speaker 1:I'm proud of them honestly because I think they're going to be the ones to change it, because it's going to cause the system to have to do something differently. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So I would like to see them get involved in helping change what healthcare can look like, what nurses, what the profession can look like. And we've got to stop bashing the profession. We've got to rebirth the profession, if you like, right, and make it, and make it, uh, what we think it should be.
Speaker 1:You know, I, I, I. I would love your advice on how to do that, because I think for a lot of nurses like for me it was I had to at some point separate nursing from healthcare and I don't think I did that for a long time. I was so angry, like I just wanted to leave. I didn't want to do it anymore. I felt taken advantage of, um, mostly by the system, sometimes by people but patients and, but mostly by the system. And I think it was until I until I found a community on LinkedIn, honestly, of other nurses who are trying to make a difference, who are out there talking, who are doing research, who are speaking, that I thought, oh my gosh, there are people out there trying. It's just when I'm bedside. I had no awareness that that was going on and that nursing, you know, I just lost, lost my pride in nursing and I regained it when I found all these women like oh, this is why we're nurses.
Speaker 2:Right, right. However, at the same time, the danger in some of these groups is that we end up being all together with a place to bitch about things. Yeah, war story. We want to find the supportive groups that. You know that statement that you become the five people you hang around with the most yeah, I love it. I want to become that positive person who has hope and inspiration for the profession, who can use the amazing skills and leadership skills that nurses have to recreate things.
Speaker 2:And if it doesn't mean your energy isn't recreating the nursing profession, it can be just recreating your life and helping others recreate their life. You know there's a tool here just recreating your life and helping others recreate their life. You know there's a tool here, and one of the things that I started to do was um, and and and I'm I'm about to relaunch this um. So there's an invitation. I was charging for this and at this point now I'm saying no, I I'm so passionate about it. I've got a group called join the movement nurses reclaiming, you know, their their life, basically. So it's bringing nurses together on a regular basis to have the positive conversations to say what are my challenges and how have I worked through them to help others who are trying to find a way, and also to even say I'm having a challenge. Does anybody know how to help? How to help me, you know, to be just in that place of having those conversations, and it could be celebrating things that are non-nursing, it doesn't matter, that's so powerful because I came.
Speaker 1:I come from like a non-healthcare family, so whenever I come home, like I have my coworkers, but you know, there's a level that we keep our coworkers at for the most part. But I came home and no one. Even when I tried to talk, to vent, it just never felt satisfying because people just never really understood it. So I can't even imagine how powerful a group of people who get it would be. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Who get it and from their own perspectives, because one of the things I just finished doing is a webinar on worldviews. Where do we get our worldviews from? You know our experiences, what we've been taught, our beliefs, you know, historically, all those kinds of things add up to our world views and so, collectively, if we can share those views without being attached to my view, is right, but more about what are the views, and then I get to choose. Right, yeah, I mean, that's that's important piece. And you know, I want to go back a little bit to what you were saying.
Speaker 2:What, what got you to the place that you are today is you had to go through the burnout, etc. Right, well, I went through that. I wasn't in nursing directly anymore, but I was still involved with nursing and I was still involved with nursing and I was still and I was, you know, rediscovering myself and becoming a coach at that time. And I remember this Saturday morning when I, you know, my husband was still in bed, the kids were upstairs, you know, playing and I was doing the dishes I don't know what it is with, you know, doing dishes and the suds in the water. But that's the place where our minds just start thinking, and thinking, and thinking, and I could you know my tears were falling into the sink as I was crying and going. I didn't sign up for this. This is not the life I wanted.
Speaker 2:And you know, breaking down, and I remember calling my husband, calling the kids, and nobody responded. And then down comes the German shepherd and gives me this kind of look you know what's going on and I took off, I took my purse and I left, and I left for two, three days and I just drove and I, you know, listened to every sad song I could listen to on the radio, because I don't know what it is. It's sort of like oh, you, artists, you get me, you understand me. You know, I was looking for that, that that connection, and I came back and, um, you know, thought, okay, I can do this, I can, I can, you know, just get back and, you know, be a better person. And all this and that cycle just came right back again because, you know, you fool yourself, right, you tell yourself things and you just have the support, a band-aid on it yeah.
Speaker 2:So I came back one day and I said that was sort of like the breaking point. And I came back, it was saturday morning and my husband and my kids were sitting at the table and I said I'd like to talk to you guys about something and I said I'm taking a what I call uh. At that time I called it project lil um and you know, today I call it mission me with my clients. Right, it's that place and I don't expect anybody to do what I did. But our mission me is whatever that means to each person, but my project little was honey, I'm taking a six-month sabbatical from being your wife, kids, from being your mother, my parents upstairs, from being your daughter. I am looking after me and I, you know, I had this vision of maybe what it would look like, right, and I said I'm moving out of the bedroom. Sweetie, can you imagine my husband's face, like are we divorcing? Like what's going on? You know, like I mean, and my kids were sort of like oh yeah, in one ear or the other, because you know, there she goes again, because you know mothers were always like that, complaining, and then things just go back to normal. And so I did.
Speaker 2:I moved out of the bedroom, I moved into a different part of the house and I remember the biggest lesson I learned was in that first hour, not in the six months, in the first hour. And that lesson was I had full permission to look after me. I now had nobody to blame. Oh, my word, I couldn't blame my husband for my unhappiness. I couldn't blame my husband for my unhappiness. I couldn't blame my kids for my unhappiness. I couldn't blame my parents for my unhappiness. I couldn't blame anybody. It was all me. The only person who could change anything was me. Oh, that was like.
Speaker 2:And I sat there and I cried and I just bawled and I just thought well, now, what do I do? Because it's all up to me. That's when I started to apply some of the coaching that I had learned. You know the discovery. And I just bawled and I just thought well, now what do I do? Because it's all up to me? That's when I started to apply some of the coaching that I had learned. You know the discovery of myself. I started to do some meditation, tried to wake up at four in the morning and do it like the monks. Do you know that didn't work. I had to find my way right.
Speaker 2:I had to do my journaling. I had to do my stuff. You know discovery, which I now developed a program and I work with people for a year, you know, working with them at their pace, not asking them to leave their spouse or their family. That's not at all what this is about. It's about how do you want to make it happen and how can I support you, and so that's what I did, but I tell you it was the best thing I ever did. Now did you move back into the best thing I ever did.
Speaker 1:I learned Now. Did you move back into the bedroom?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and I thought my marriage was over. My marriage is in a great place. It wasn't. You know, here I was trying to fix everybody else, because they were the problem. It wasn't them. I had to look at myself and when I changed my attitude, when I, you know, there's this great quote by Wayne Dyer who says when you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change. That's exactly what I did. I started to change the way I looked at things and things changed.
Speaker 2:My husband wasn't the problem, my kids weren't the problem, my parents weren't the problem. Sure, there's issues. I mean always will be right, yeah, but I knew perfect, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so that's, that's my story, that's really my story. That got me to where I am here today. And I, you know, and I was that unstoppable woman, like I'd get back up and, you know, fall flat on my face and then get right back up and start over and redo the same things I was doing, still blaming others. Well, you know, and it's hard to look at yourself.
Speaker 1:It's simple, but it's hard. Oh my gosh, it's so hard. It's so hard, it's scary. It's terrifying at first. It's absolutely terrifying, yeah.
Speaker 2:So so that's why we need to do things at the pace of the person. Who's who's doing this? I don't expect anybody to do it the way I did it.
Speaker 1:And you know my burnout program is a flex program because I found like there's just some parts of it that people get held up on. They need more time with like cause. You don't realize where some of these things are coming from. Sometimes they're very deeply rooted in things that are scary, and so people need time yeah they do need time.
Speaker 2:And, and you know and do, am I that perfect person today? Absolutely not. Time. And you know and do, am I that perfect person today? Absolutely not. I still look at myself sometimes I go oh, I can't believe I was blaming him for this, or you know or yeah, and I've got to look at myself. That's where the mirror is always. That's better fact, the mirror is always there. No joke, the mirror is always here, right, it's. It's like I remind myself where is this about you, you know?
Speaker 1:yeah, how do you help women find that place? I mean I, how do you? Where do you start with women?
Speaker 2:well, you know I think the the most powerful place that I've started with most people seems to be the place is about the negative chatter that we have in our brain, um, and scientifically, and positive intelligence, the studies that have been done around that is that the more we listen to those saboteur voices, the more we feed into it. There's a story basically about the old Cherokee who says to his grandson you know that one right.
Speaker 1:You're the second person to bring it up on this podcast, and I. It's so beautiful, let's say it again please.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's basically the old Cherokee says there's, you know, two wolves that live inside our brain and it's like they're fighting. One is the evil wolf, you know, with all the negative things, the ego, you know, the pride, the guilt, the shame, all those kinds of feelings, and then you've got the good wolf. That's, you know, joy, passion, patience, curiosity, all those things. And the little boy says, well, who wins? And the Cher boy says, well, the who wins? And the Cherokee says, the one you feed and so I remember that yeah so when you know you get people who start negative chatter, I just go.
Speaker 2:I get a choice here do I feed that evil wolf or do I go and step into my, my good wolf?
Speaker 1:yeah, not that there's not a place to get things out, but then you have to move on. You know you have to decide what you have control over, what you don't have control over, what you don't have control over, you got to let go. For me that was huge in healthcare because there's so much to be frustrated about, so much that's outside our control that, you see, go wrong. You know, and it hurts because you care. And for me, when I could find that detachment is when I could go back to work. But it took like I had took three months off and was having a lot of trouble going back. And now when I go back, I think some of the younger nurses cause I'm like detachment, you have to detach from some things. Look at me a little coldly but I'm like no, this is a self preservation, because if you attach yourself to all those things you have no control, You're just suffering, to suffer.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, yeah. So in positive intelligence we talk about the master of all saboteurs is the judge. We judge ourselves.
Speaker 2:We judge others and we judge circumstances and when I go back to healthcare, you know that's a circumstance, like we're judging the system. But who is the system and where are we responsible for things? Right, yeah, that judge is so powerful and then he takes on his accomplices. Well, my top accomplice is the controller. If I can't control things, I get in with my other accomplice who avoids, so I step away void. So I gotta catch myself on those things.
Speaker 2:To this very day, I still have to catch myself with stuff you know, when I get upset with somebody because it's not, they're not not doing it my way, then I go. Okay, hang on a second. Is it me right now or is it my saboteur? The controller was trying to control everything. Okay, buddy, time to get away, it's. I don't need you right now, you just make it worse.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah so that sounds powerful.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. So that sounds powerful. Talking to yourself is okay. Yeah, it's all good. Yeah, so what kind of? When you talk about your calls, I thought these what were they called? Nurses reclaim life. Are those daily? Is that what I read?
Speaker 2:No, so the Nursing Reclaim your Life is a weekly call. A weekly call, okay, join the movement? Okay, and we're just doing a call to step in and say where are we Introduce ourselves? You know, when I started this, I had people from South Africa, from France, from you know different places that I've worked in, because you know our stuff is our stuff, it doesn't matter where you're living. Because you know our stuff is our stuff, it doesn't matter where you're living. And you know if you can compare yourself. I mean, when I look at stuff in South Africa, I go why are they complaining here in Canada or in the States, right?
Speaker 2:However that's our reality. Right, go back to. You know our worldviews. That's our reality, and when something shifts from that, it's as disturbing as it is to somebody who's got it worse. You know, and so it's as disturbing as it is to somebody who's got it worse, you know, and so it's not a comparison game. It's about our own perspective on it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I always try to frame things like a child therapist told me this once that I think about it all the time, like the worst thing that you they've ever experienced is the worst thing they've ever experienced, and that and I think about that with adults all the time like, yeah, you know, it's their perspective, it's their world. You know, so little things can have a big impact for people.
Speaker 2:Well, and the thing I love about that is that that tells me that nobody gets to be wrong, that we are all right. So if you say to me, this is you know, this is how you see the world, or what's going on, and I go you know, that's your truth and I can't deny even though it may not be my truth, I can't deny you your truth, that's your truth. So what do we need to do to help you deal with that perspective so that you're not eaten away by it? Yeah, how do we bring that peace to you, to you, so that you can feel okay, I don't have control over this. I'm trying to control everything around me. What do I have control over? What do I really want? Because half the time when I tell people, so what do you want? And they say to me, well, I don't want to be married to this guy anymore and I don't want this job, I go. I am so clear on what you don't want. What do you want? I don't know. Yeah, that's the.
Speaker 1:That's the real issue, huh. I found that in burnout, my burnout program Sometimes some people it's not about like leaving the profession either, like they love what they do. They just need to find a new way to approach it to make it fit their life, because what the way they've been doing it is not working Right.
Speaker 2:And and, and part of that is also, you know, dealing with the, the, you know the negative people around you.
Speaker 2:So I remember a time when, when you know, the environment was not good and I and I was so sick of being around these people and I brought in bag of being around these people and I brought in bagels and cream cheese for the whole, not just our department but the department around us as well. And one guy comes up to me and he says why did you bring bagels and cream cheese? And I said, actually, because I'm so tired of the negativity, I just wanted to do something good, and probably today, with nutrition, it wouldn't be bagels and cream cheese. But at that point it was, yeah, but. But you know, I brought it in. And he said well, it's going to take a hell of a lot more than bagels and cream cheese to change this place. And I went well, it's a good start. But you know, you, you, if that's not for you, that's fine the end of the day.
Speaker 2:he came up to me he said thank you, it really did make a difference and I went well, I'm glad you saw it. You know, and that's it. It's make a difference and I went. Well, I'm glad you saw it and that's it. It's not a judgment. That's where he was and do it anyway. As much as you might have resistance around you, do it anyway, because people will eventually say, yeah, you know what, maybe this isn't so bad.
Speaker 1:So tell me how you, what are the ways that you work with women, what are ways that women can find you work with you? Tell me a little bit about that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so what I'll do is I'll give you a link to my calendar, and I think that's the best way. So somebody can you know, reach out and have a conversation with me to see where they're at. I mean, not everybody's in the same place, and maybe it's not coaching that you need, maybe it's a different kind of support that you need or other things that need to happen first. Right, so that would be the first thing to do is to have a conversation, and I'm just rebuilding my website right now, so there'll be more things around that and I'll be able to let people know.
Speaker 2:However, in that, in that frame of mind, when people approach me, then I say, okay, so what are the struggles that you see and where would you like to be? And I know it's really interesting because I worked with somebody who's 20 years old just the other day and he said to me you know, how do I know when I got there, when I've arrived? And I love that question because it's sort of like you know, how do I know when I got there, when I've arrived, and I love that question because it's sort of like you know, okay, I'm going to work with you as a coach for a year. You know you're going to be and, by the way, I do VIP coaching so which means that you don't only get calls regular calls with me, but if there's something you're struggling with in between, I'm a text away, I'm an email away and even maybe even a phone call away at that point. Right, yeah, so having somebody by your side that you can count on at the at the time you need it, not just on your regular meetings, you know, uh, it's important.
Speaker 2:So I said to this guy well, what's the it that would have you know? You're there, like what does that look like? Right, so well, I don't know success, I go. What is success? Yeah, you know money and whatever. And I said, well, how much money you know? All these things? Like you really have to break it down to know. And I said, and that's so, I take the wheel of life you know for some who don't know.
Speaker 2:You've got your, your wheel, divided into different pieces and you've got, you know, your career, your health, your finances, etc. Right, and you score it from zero to 10, zero being it's the worst it could be, 10 being the best it could be. And what's really interesting, even for myself, is that you might be an eight and you say, well, here's a 10. And, working with me, we might move to a nine or a 10 or whatever. But when you redo the wheel, you might be back at a seven or an eight and you think, but I've moved forward. Why am I at a seven and eight? Because your 10 has now changed. You've expanded what you really want, because you're clearer on it, and that's really where you arrive, as I said to this young man. I said, where you arrive is where you're arriving, where you're heading right now, but you're always changing where you're going and what you're trying to achieve.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's okay, it's like that quote, like aim for the moon, you land upon the stars.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:I don't know that quote.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's like if you're, if you reach.
Speaker 1:If you're, if you're aiming for the moon like you, don't have to worry, because if you miss, you still land upon the stars like exactly, exactly, and half the time it's not where you're going anyway yeah, you know it's it's.
Speaker 2:It's always changing, it's always evolving. Because you're evolving, you're showing up every day as a different person, a new perspective, new way of seeing things, and you test it. You test these tools that we, you know, we we talk about and work on, and then you say, yeah, I like that, but here's how it worked with so-and-so, but maybe, you know, with this person it didn't work as well. What do I need to do here? So having that partner to talk things about and and how to move forward with things, so precious, I mean, I still work with a coach. You know I've been doing this for what? 25 years now. I still work with a coach.
Speaker 1:You know I've been doing this for 25 years now, I still work with my coach.
Speaker 2:You know a couple. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, that's. That's the good thing about being a coach is you do have a couple. You have the formal one that you pay and the other ones that just you know you can lean on every now and then. Yeah, yeah so true, so true, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:That's what helped me through my burnout. Honestly, I went through therapy. I saw tons of doctors and it was working with coaches, one-on-one. That was it. Helped me heal. It helped me figure out exactly, get to the root of it. It was much more impact Not that I didn't get things out of therapy, because I did and I'm glad I went, and I think they actually go hand in hand very well, because you don't always know what you're going to come up against in coaching. I usually advise my clients to at least have a therapist at some point, because I really do think some of that stuff you hit you don't expect to sometimes and you need a little help sorting it out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So sometimes clients do work with therapists and coach at the same time and sometimes they really have to go with therapy first, or you know, or vice versa, whatever. But absolutely, you're absolutely right. And what I love about that, that kind of brings me to where I work with balance, with women. You know, we're never balanced in all areas and I think that that's, that's the false information that we have, at least that's my truth for now, and that's the place of when I'm working my coach, maybe I'm developing my business and how I'm getting in the way of my business. Then I might be working on my relationship and where am I might be getting in the way of my relationship, you know. So it's all. It's all intertwined, but it's never everything at once.
Speaker 1:You know I'm going to tell you another quote I love. Now you're bringing all the quotes out of me today, but there's one called it says like you can have everything you want, but just not at once.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, it's so true, yeah, and then we define well, what do you want? I don't know.
Speaker 1:Prioritizing. Yeah, that game a lot yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, lot, yeah, yeah, and. And things happen in life and they don't happen to us, they happen for us. So stopping and pausing and saying why is this happening? Without judgment, because remember that the master judge there can come in and judge everything. It's more about wonder why this is happening and where is it guiding me to you know that resiliency mindset is so powerful.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. Well, it's the pause in asking the questions and waiting for the answer. We don't. I mean, the answers are all within us, but sometimes we've got to dig a little deeper for them, or? Even more spatial Right. And ask the question and wait for the answer without expecting the answer right to be a certain thing, being open to what comes.
Speaker 1:What what's there?
Speaker 2:yeah, curiosity it's so cool to be curious and say, whoa, you know, um, and the tests that we have in life. I remember at one point when I was doing my coaching and my family said to me this is just a hobby, this is not a job, because you know you're struggling at the beginning, you know trying to bring clients in and stuff like that at the very beginning of a business. And I remember saying don't you ever dare take away what I'm passionate about. You don't have that right. I get to make the decisions of what's a hobby or what's a job for me, but don't ever take that away from me.
Speaker 1:and that was probably their fear of seeing you fail and get hurt. Anyway, you know what I?
Speaker 2:mean that was them putting their fear on you absolutely, absolutely, and you know I think that that's uh. I remember one of my coaches saying to me once the thing thing I love about you, lillian, is your persistence. It doesn't matter how many times you fall and fail and you get back up and you just keep going. All based on my passion, which is a key to success, Lillian.
Speaker 1:That's why you are as awesome as you are.
Speaker 2:Yeah as well, but it is the key to success is sticking with what you know and what you. You know where your heart is and that's the check-in for nurses is to see you know. Are you in the right place? Yeah, that doesn't mean you're. You might not be in the right profession, but you might not. You might still be a nurse, but not in the right place.
Speaker 1:Or you just have to approach it differently. I feel like that's a small percentage, but those people are out there too. Or you know what, like you wanted to do this so bad, you did it and now maybe it doesn't fit anymore. You know what else would you want it to do?
Speaker 2:What other there's so much out there. Well, and it takes me to a quote that I've actually created along the way, and it's the difference between happiness and joy. Happiness is joy, happiness is, um is circumstantial. I'll be happy when I retire. I'll be happy when I'm married. I'll be happy when I have that white picket fence house. I'll be happy when I have two and a half kids.
Speaker 2:Right, you know the standards of external yeah, everything is, I'll be happy when you know I. I'd say to my husband at one point, you know he got something. I'd say, are you happy? You got a new computer. And he'd say, well, I'll be happy when it's set up and it's running. You know, and I'm going like, seriously, can't you be happy right now?
Speaker 2:And it's all circumstantial, and I say, whereas joy is an attitude that defies all circumstances. So, regardless of how much you say nasty things to me, I had somebody say something nasty to me this morning, not work related, but, and I just said, wow, it's. You know, like what do you need to vent Like? And that comes from another quote that says what's hurting you so much that you feel the need to hurt me, right? So I'm not going to look at it as that my ego is being hurt, but more about what's going on over there that you feel so hurt that you feel like you need to do that for me, to me, right? And I go, maybe it's happening for me, that's an opportunity for me to help somebody who is in real need. So I choose joy, I joy, I love that, I love that. Yeah, beautiful perspective.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a choice. I did a free workshop earlier this week on like what self-love? But it was. You know what, what is really self-love? Self-love is unconditional self-acceptance, and it's not all those other things we think it is. It's looking at ourselves, accepting the good, bad, the ugly and taking challenges on. You know, like appreciating the struggle, finding the good in it. I just think this is a beautiful thing to do this week of Valentine's Day with you.
Speaker 2:Right on point Right and so interesting. You say that because I was coaching somebody this week and her thing was, you know that she wanted to lose weight and she wanted to be more fit and stuff like that. Nothing wrong with that, that's, you know, moving towards something. But I said, and what if you never, your weight never changes, and what if your arthritis or whatever is there and will hold you back? What will it take for you to accept that you are perfect the way you are, still with a desire to get better? Nothing wrong with that, no, but can you love yourself the way you are? Otherwise? It's that judge coming in yeah, yeah, and she was like wow, yeah, so she's working on that.
Speaker 2:Five exercises. You know where people look in the mirror and they ask themselves each you know questions in the in the morning that you know we I've taken from lisa nichols, who's a who's a coach, and she's done this mirror exercise all her life and it's it's really about looking in the mirror and saying seven times I'm proud of you, lily, and I'm proud of you for whatever, and just I'm proud of you for whatever. And just don't recite it Like just whatever comes up and then I forgive you for, and it could be things like I forgive you for stealing.
Speaker 2:You know Sammy's chocolate in grade two. You know it could be anything from way back because of those memories. You know I didn't know Sammy or have any chocolates, but you know, that's an example. Um, and then the third one is Lillian. I commit to and it could just be, I commit to showing up to this mirror tomorrow morning.
Speaker 2:Lillian, I commit to hugging myself three times today, like you know, whatever it is, but really looking in your own eyes and your soul, no-transcript yeah, I can imagine yeah, and you know, when you talk about the coaching, it's like I've had a client that I introduced that exercise to a year ago and just last week she had, she did it once and she said it was really hard. And just last week she's in a different place and that was back to where we're going back to. So it's okay that she didn't do it for a year. That's not a judgment, right? It's not a bad thing. Was she ready? She tried, she faced, she had struggles, we talked about that, we worked on other things and then now we're revisiting it. Next week I'm meeting with her. We'll see how it went.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh my gosh. I remember the first time someone said to me and now this is like second nature, right, but where in your body do you feel that emotion? Yes, and I thought they were crazy. I was like what are you talking about? And then, even trying to consider, that was just seemed out of this world. And now I am so aware of the physical sensations when I'm overwhelmed with any emotion, so first place my awareness goes. But it was so I couldn't even fathom that that was real when someone first said it to me.
Speaker 1:I'm like you are crazy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, and it takes time to be able to feel that. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1:I feel like it took me years years.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's often. I remember, you know, doing leadership, leadership, coaching circles in a hospital. Once with these big leaders and with the person in the learning and development area. I said, Well, I could do this kind of healing circle in the very formal indigenous way, or we could do it, you know, in a safe place for for leaders who've never experienced anything like this. She goes, let's go for it. So I went okay, I've got my partner in this, and I remember bringing in the you know, the candle in the center of the blanket and the drums and the, and you know, uh, and I started by singing an indigenous little song and, um, the faces of these leaders.
Speaker 2:At that point I've been, I'd been coaching for a while, but they just all went. I'm ready to walk out of here, Like this is weird. They were so uncomfortable. They were so uncomfortable. So we talked about that for the time that we were there. But I turned around to the learning development person. I said, oh my God, did we ever fail here? And I said she goes, no, it gave us information about where they're at. So now I know I need to meet people. It took me that big failure to. You know, a failure, that's.
Speaker 1:That's a learning failure, if you like um to understand that you have to meet people where they're ready yeah well, and you never know, they might you never know what happened to those people later in their life, or they may reference that experience or even have referenced it later in the day and not realize the impact.
Speaker 2:You're absolutely right, you're absolutely right. I'm still in touch with one of the leaders that you know, who became a friend eventually, and she still thinks I'm weird in that way. But she says, you know, she gets things a little bit more like now the touchy feely, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that's typical, like this particular person was even somebody when I first met him, met her, I said I knew, based on the questions, that we needed to work on her marriage. She was a leader, we worked for a year together and it was all corporate business, all that kind of stuff, which was fine, you know. And then I was late one day and I left her with an assignment. I said work on this while, you know, till I get there, I'm. Just a few minutes late she was working on the Blackboard and she said okay, I'm ready, I'm ready to talk about marriage. And you know, then she got divorced. You know, I coached her through divorce, coached her through dating, and then she got remarried and and you know, so, been through all that journey with her. But again, like I say, and and you know so, been through all that journey with her. But again, like I say, people are only ready for what they're ready for in that moment, even though, as a coach, sometimes I can see it, it's okay.
Speaker 1:No judgment. Yeah, a hundred percent. A hundred percent. I find when uh, it's funny you say that about like the relationship with our husband, because in my program I like a lot of people it's not necessarily sometimes it's their personal relationship with their spouse or loved one, but a lot of times it's family relationships, other dynamics in their family where they have poor boundaries, where they feel exhausted and overcommitted and resentful. And I don't have those in my own personal family as much. We have good boundaries from therapy, probably very young, but I'm like, oh my gosh, I had no idea how big of a role that plays in so many people's lives, just a simple thing of being able to speak those boundaries with love to their loved ones.
Speaker 1:It's so hard, it is.
Speaker 2:And love can blind. Oh gosh. Yes, I've got a client who's type A personality never get married, and people who are in my way, I eliminate them. This is her attitude, right? She's a very, very strong minded individual and and then she gets engaged and this guy is just like she's. She has no boundaries with him, she, he lets her, he basically dictates what needs to be done and even though she's not happy about it, she does it. And I'm like whoa, night and day, this day, this person like what? How are you going to tolerate this 20 years down the road when you're with this individual? Because in your natural world you don't tolerate that. What makes you think that this is okay right now?
Speaker 2:but she's just so blinded by having a need met that he's meeting in some way and this is where it's my job as the coach to not judge it, but to just shine a light on it and let the client come up to their own revelations when they're ready.
Speaker 1:It's her process.
Speaker 2:Right, it's her process, absolutely, absolutely. And then when you have a coaching conversation like that, and then at the end you say what are you walking away with, like, what did you learn about yourself in this, in this conversation? And she was like, oh yeah, man, I'm, you know, I I've got a lot of issues still. I didn't realize we're still there and I went okay, so let's talk about what you want to do with that late next, next call. It's okay. But she came to that revelation.
Speaker 1:It's not me telling her, yeah, having a safe space is really powerful for people to be, able to come without judgment, because there's a lot of people that don't have that either, or don't think they have that.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or to practice that muscle.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's one of the things that I work with you. We work on like developing relationships that are already in your life, sometimes to support you better, but that may be there that you just, you know, haven't put the energy or trusted enough to let it.
Speaker 2:Well, even it's funny. You talk about relationship, because one of the trainings that I have in coaching is the is the um, uh started off with organizational relationship systems coaching. Okay, it's all about systems, but in that we learn about you know the relationships, what a relationship is? Many people do not understand relationships. They think a relationship is you know, it's me, it's you, and no, the relation you are you, the other person is the other person. That's their own relationship with self. And then the relationship you developed is like what do I want from this relationship? What can I give to this relationship? We know what are the boundaries I set, what am I, you know, and with those rules or what we've co-created together in this relationship, can we be in this kind of a relationship? And whether it's romantic or whether it's business doesn't matter, it's all the same thing. It's a third entity and we have to be able to define it as a third entity, because too many people hold on to the other person to make them happy right, yes, you're speaking to me.
Speaker 1:I started my business with like a best friend of like 26 years and we lost our friendship over it, and now that it's over, I realize exactly why. I know exactly why it's for the best. It's no hard feelings, it was a personality, ways we made up for each other and protected each other for years that never would have been successful as business owners together, and it was just being blinded by the history of that relationship. Yeah, so so interesting. You say that because I'm like yes yes, I did yeah.
Speaker 2:And you know, when I say in a relationship, what's the percentage each person gives into a let's talk about an intimate relationship? Okay, what's the percentage that we give into a relationship?
Speaker 2:oh, it depends on the day yeah, but actually many people say 50, 50 and you need to give you 50. 50 right, it's actually 100. You get 100 of who you are. My 100 today may be better than yesterday. We're not as good as yesterday, but I'm giving you 100 of what I've got. It's always 100. So there's this exercise. Actually, I did some leadership training in spain or not as good as yesterday, but I'm giving you 100% of what I've got. It's always 100%. So there's this exercise.
Speaker 2:Actually, I did some leadership training in Spain, where you know, we're in a tree, we're walking on a rope, and my partner's gone up her tree and I've gone up mine, and then we're holding this stick and so we have to walk along this rope. Got nothing to hold on to except this stick in between us. And the thing is, if I don't lean in a hundred percent and she doesn't lean in a hundred percent, we're gonna fall. But the thing is, if I'm afraid to lean in because I might fall, she's gonna fall, we're gonna fall, we have to lean in a hundred percent. So I have people do that, standing up where they're, you know, holding hands like this together and put their feet out longer and longer so that they're leaning in and they're going. Well, no, you know you're bigger than me and I'm gonna fall. Doesn't matter, give a hundred percent of what you've got and we will never fall same thing beautiful individuals.
Speaker 1:Hundred percent of what I can for today for myself, yeah beautiful gosh, so much beautiful stuff really rich conversation here yes, well, um, let's see here I think we're, we're getting there to on time, so let's. There's one thing I ask everybody that I'd like to ask you, just like when times are hard for you and you're really struggling what is your go-to self-care that, for you, is like your reset.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a great question and I've and I've redefined it closer more recently and it's really that piece of I. I go to that place of saying not what I need to do, but what do I need right now. And sometimes that need I'm going to say I've stole this from men because men go, you know, for the longest time I said they nap and what's wrong with men? Why can't they stay up all day? Why do they have to nap? They actually have a very cool secret that napping, whether I sleep or not, given myself permission to lie down and put my timer on or whatever, I just go, I've really given myself what my body needed in that moment. And it's either time to sleep, which sometimes it is, or sometimes it's just time to do my breathing exercises or my I do hip exercises from this woman who's called the workout witch and she does. That's where trauma is held in our hips yeah, I follow her.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So doing some hip exercises, doing some meditation of breathing, um just being in in pause, stopping, is the healthiest thing one can do for them, for oneself I love that yeah, so that's, yeah, that's.
Speaker 1:My secret to you is just stop stop and pause and don't judge yourself for it, because that's, I think, a lot of people the resting they judge themselves while they're resting. It's not restful, just gotta well, because you know why?
Speaker 2:because they don't have anything to focus on. So in what we call positive intelligence reps, we call these pq reps, we call them you're actually focused on either breathing or tactile or doing something with the senses, and when you do that, you have something to focus on, and every time your mind wanders, you just bring it right back to what you're focusing on. Okay, it's just a practice trick.
Speaker 1:I like that yeah, I like that.
Speaker 2:I was reading like that this positive intelligence is based in neuroscience, which I think is so cool because there's so much cool stuff coming out of what from, like, neuroscience research so, oh, absolutely, when you do these pq reps on a regular basis, like for six to eight weeks, you can actually see in an mri that the gray matter in your positive thinking brain increases and the gray matter in your uh, negative, where the saboteurs live decreases. So there's actually scientific proof that this stuff works and it works. I'm telling you it works.
Speaker 1:That's really cool. Yeah Well, Miss Lillian, what else do you want to leave us with today?
Speaker 2:Oh, I'm just thrilled to have that conversation with you, jenny. I think you're such a sweetheart, you've got an open heart, you're you know, from the first time I met you and we met in Nurses Transforming Healthcare, which is a group if you guys don't know nursestransforminghealthcareorg something to look into. I mean, what can I say other than you don't have to commit to anything by reaching out to either Jenny or myself and saying I just need to talk, can you listen to me, and then you get to choose. I never force anybody to go join programs or do anything. I say you get to choose what's next for you. So don't be afraid to pick up the phone or book time with someone. Get what you need during that time and then choose. You get to choose. And if anybody tries to sell you something so hard and pushy, that's because it's about them and it's not about you.
Speaker 1:Yep, yep, agreed, agreed. Beautiful advice and there's so much free stuff, free resources out there. Williams weekly group is amazing for nurses.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, yeah, so I'll, I'll put the link to both those things and we'll uh, you know and go from there.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:All right.
Speaker 1:Well, it's been a pleasure. Thank you so much.
Speaker 2:Yes, Thank you, jenny, you take care.
