Hello and welcome to the You Know How To Live show my name is Kate Hammer and in just a moment we will have Colleen Blake-Miller with us Colleen is a registered psychotherapist based out of Toronto Canada where she works to combine her advanced degrees in psychotherapy and divinity to embolden women to live full and healthy lives Colleen regularly speaks at conferences and programs across North America when she is not working with her clients in one-on-one in group settings now wherever you are listening or watching from I'm so glad that you are tuned in and hanging out I hope you are ready for my favorite combination of things hopefully a bit of entertainment and of course some takeaways to improve how you work and play and do all the things you do in between please take a moment right now to subscribe follow leave a comment or give a five star review so that we can stay connected and with that let's bring in Colleen Blake-Miller Colleen thank you for joining me today I'm so glad that you agreed to spend some time chatting talking about what you do absolutely thank you for having me on Kate I'm so excited to have some moments that we can chat together yeah absolutely so um just to get everybody on the same page Colleen and I have actually known each other for a few years which is very different from the other interviews that you're hearing from me for many of them it's the first time I've ever spoken with the person but Colleen and I go back a little bit we were introduced to each other by a mutual friend and have been able to work together on some projects we didn't meet in person until very recently do you want to let the audience know when did we meet yeah so we met just this past Summer September is considered Summer still right like the beginning right who can know the weather depending on your phenomenon so we were at a conference together we sat on a panel together uh uh the Southern New England or the New England Coastal Creative Conference right and it was a wonderful wonderful time I love the conference I absolutely loved our panel but most of all I just loved hanging out with you because we have chatted over zoom like I don't know so many times over the phone voice notes back and forth DMs on Instagram so it was just so wonderful to meet in person and to be like yeah she's she's as cool as she is virtually yeah oh my goodness yeah we had a blast and we also had our friend Christina Scaleira on stage with us we talked about the importance of your story as an entrepreneur or in someone you know with any kind of creative pursuit that you can be in your wholeness in all of the challenges and struggles that you faced that you can be showing up as that authentic person all the way around and how to do that and how to do that really well it was great it was nice to be in a space with like-minded uh individuals who are sort of also along you know sort of the the entrepreneurial journey and uh hearing that uh some of your pain points are like common pain points uh sometimes we think hey am I over here in my corner of the world struggling by myself but just hearing the the the commonality between the stories was really impactful very impactful it was helpful to just normalize the struggle yeah yeah so Colleen what you're talking about is how each of us each of the three of us Colleen Christina and I we all shared a little bit of our own stories including the parts that we weren't necessarily the most proud of or that aren't like the most exhilarating but to illustrate the point that it all matters and it's all an opportunity to connect with others
so Colleen you work as a registered psychotherapist for all of us over here in the States can you describe a little bit about what that means and what it is comparable to for the Americans well I don't know that I know exactly what it's comparable to I I hear Americans using the term psychotherapy as well so I suspect that like myself they have you know sort of the educational background where they've had some study in psychology uh and or just psychotherapy and sort of modality like the modalities used uh and applied in talk therapy um and that's basically what day-to-day work looks like for me I am sitting with individuals with couples uh with families as they're navigating challenging seasons of their life you know they recognize my life isn't going the way that I ideally would want it to go or I feel like it should be going and I I need support to figure out how to get on track or figure out what that track should look like or could look like um so it's it's it's a unique um uh space to be in because while we are all the same in humanity uh you know the paths that we uh kind of take to get to happiness wholeness healing um to to find our sense of purpose and fulfill it it's it's unique and different so I love I love the work that I do and I consider it to be a great privilege to be invited into people's stories and struggles uh and to be a witness to their mountaintop experiences as well as to help them document how they navigated the valley uh and got through yeah okay so that's interesting you're saying documenting how they get through that can you describe a little bit about what that might look like so I mean I am someone who uh encourages folks uh documenting tracking their own journey so I'm I'm I always give homework I kind of begin my my work with most clients encouraging them if they haven't already to secure a notebook if that seems to be a barrier I've got you know a bookshelf full of notebooks no excuses yeah no excuses um just because it's important to understand what's happening um it's important to to understand your story it's important to understand like your strengths too sometimes we get so fixated on the problem that we don't um remember hey I actually know how to how to navigate this I've done this in the past and so um and then sometimes too we feel like we might be in low but if we go back to let's say when we first began working together yeah and we compare that low you were at when you first came in versus this there is a huge there's there's been a huge change uh you're actually in it in a better space of course I document my clients journeys because you know I have a responsibility to have client notes and to keep those for you know the amount of time that my college requires but I encourage clients to do the same because we forget we forget sometimes uh about our strengths we forget about the things that we've navigated in the past uh and and and we fixate on on maybe the current issue that is problematic and then um we feel like okay I'm starting from scratch like I'm at ground zero and that's that's never the case
yeah absolutely so you've always done work with an individual or a couple or a family unit um and when you started your work was that your primary group or target or did you also offer group counseling um so I always from like right out the gate I offered individual couple and family therapy okay um my first job you know in the field was I was in the for like the I think the job title was like ICF it stood for individual couple and family like therapist and and so um you know that's kind of what what it what it looked like group work I did when I uh worked for some community agencies not a lot though because I wasn't really hired on to do the group work I generally had roles where I was working sort of one-on-one with either an individual a couple a unit or a fam or some kind of you know constellation of a family and but in my private practice and in some of the community work that I do that's where I would lean a little bit more to the group work and and more so in the last year since um the pandemic that's where I have kind of begun doing a little bit more group work but the group work that I do is actually I guess I would put that under the coaching um category uh it's more sort of like group coaching that that I that I do within my within my practice and I'm loving exploring that world as well yeah okay so I'm angling toward a very specific question but first I think we would just love the clarification um from your definition what what is the difference between a therapist and a coach okay so that's a really good question because because many times folks wonder do I need coaching or do I need therapy yeah um sometimes depending on who you know you're listening to or you know the therapist or the coach you feel like I could I could see myself making you know some forward movement with either one and so psychotherapy or doing uh psychotherapy talk therapy generally is looking going a little bit deeper so you are going to be I'm concerned and curious about the history of a person you're going to be curious um about uh you know traumas that they may have experienced there's often
an element of unpacking difficult things that they have encountered things that have them stuck you know it's like I want to move forward I want to do these things that you know we've outlined that need to get done to get to this goal but I keep kind of getting stuck well what is that what is that stuckness and so you slow it down therapy often it's very slow and very deep um coaching and again I'm not an expert at coaching because I'm I'm slowly kind of wading into those waters uh more and more these days it really is when a person has the clarity and the capacity the ability mentally emotionally um to go after those strategic steps that they know are going to land them uh to that ideal goal you know in your coaching you spend time figuring out what is that goal for personal growth or if it's you know fitness maybe it's like a fitness you know yeah all types of coaches right all types of coaches right if it's a life coach it's like okay I want to you know have my life looking like this or that and and there is a sense of clarity around what I'm going for and then with your coach you strategize the steps that you're gonna take to get there and and as the um you know the the the client you would then I don't even know if that's the right term I'm just using the term that I use for this client um then you go out and you action those steps what I have found is um there are some coaches that I'm closely connected to they often will refer clients to me maybe after some time of doing work with them because they realize they know what to do we've gone over this but they keep getting stuck they can't seem to kind of action these things there's something there's something deeper going on and they need to sort through that before they can sort of come back and and and put their you know hand or head to the plow and move forward with uh just achieving the thing that they say they want to do so does that does that make sense yeah absolutely what I'm hearing a lot of is time spent on digging into the past for the therapist versus time focused on what's going to happen in the future with the coach just mapping it out strategizing I imagine like the coach is like the guide to say all right this is what you say want to do here are the steps yeah with as a therapist I am um I'm not telling my clients what to do right I think that say more on that because I think sometimes if you know if we haven't been in therapy we expect that we're like come on like come fix me like tell me what needs to happen so debunk that for us what happens actually yeah I I have clients asking me that all the time Colleen what should I do just tell me what to do yeah and and and the clients that have worked with me for some time they know like I know you're not going to tell me Colleen but just can you tell me yeah I mean and so here's the thing um you know I will live out the consequences of my actions you will live up the consequences of yours so who am I to tell you what to do I'm not living out those consequences and besides that I believe that you are going to be way more committed to the solutions that are coming from within yourself than the solutions that I have to offer you of course I have an opinion I've got an opinion on everything or thought about everything but it's not my place as your therapist to even share that with you you know in in certain contexts yes of course you're going to um you know kind of give some thoughts about things but more importantly than your therapist's opinion or views or convictions is your own as the client and getting really clear on what that is you know a lot of the times we are bogged down and we are immobilized because we're weighed down by the opinions and the perceived you know opinions of other people and and and not having clarity on your vision your values your sense of purpose uh what you really believe is the best for you that is uh very problematic and it gets in the way of forward movement so in therapy we get to make space slow things down so that clients can figure that out together and so it's a slower pace where you know coaching it's like okay um by the time we're done the six weeks or 12 weeks together I would have shown you my strategy because a lot of coaches have their own kind of curriculum that they walk their clients through it's like we're going to do bam bam bam bam bam bam bam you can't really give those guarantees in therapy you know for some clients you could come in and it's just like a session it's happened before and it's like wow I have you know had that aha moment the light bulb is off I have clarity I think I know you know like thank you this is what I needed and off they go and others it's gonna be a longer process um I've had I have clients that I see for a short period of time I have clients that I've seen for longer uh as well so everybody's situation and story is different so um that's a little of my thoughts of the difference between therapy and coaching yeah and really the experience and what someone can anticipate so Colleen in doing this for years and years and years you must see some trends some news and I'm not necessarily speaking to the most traumatic ones but maybe even like the more mundane day-to-day concerns that people have would you be willing to share some of the typical gripes that you hear and what sort of advice you give I mean I know you're not telling people what to do but you are giving them some homework and some ideas about how to get some traction so what are people facing right now what are what are some of the issues that are reoccurring that you just keep hearing over and over and over again yeah there's absolutely uh trends uh anxiety is just it's it's on the incline people are just um expressing more and more uh feelings of anxiousness uneasiness being unsettled being confused being unclear um not really feeling sure about themselves about where their life is going about what the future looks like and so the one of the modalities that I work uh from a lot is CBT that's Cognitive Behavioral Therapy so I am always very curious to understand what clients are saying to themselves about what they're going through um you know how you think about a thing and the conversations you have with your thought with yourself about those things is going to affect the way that you feel and so if we want to feel better if we want to um like genuinely um have a better mental health and well-being that we need to be um a little bit more discriminating in terms of what we allow to live in our in our thoughts uh what we allow to you know take precedence or take you know space up in our in our mind and in my work often is helping clients pay more attention to what they're saying about their experiences what they're saying to themselves about the past things that they have been through what they're saying to themselves about the future and helping them to reframe that so that it is empowering you know you are dwelling on empowering thoughts and and working on really believing those uh that you know our work is is heavily about uh you know finding uh truthful and positive thoughts that that they could be dwelling on and saying to themselves continually because yeah in a world that is is full of a lot of negativity and um you know there's you know kind of evil that we experience in the world too right and a lot of a lot of heavy challenges so yeah that's a little of of you know the the trends of of what i see and what the work that I do looks like yeah so at some point along the way in your work you came to some realization that it would be useful to offer another way for people to work on themselves their mental health their wellness all the way around can you tell me a little bit about that realization and then what it turned into so as I said I love what I do um often times the talks that I give the workshops that I you know create they um a lot of the content comes from some of the work that I do with some of my clients so whether it be strategies that I am walking clients through or homework that I keep finding myself repeating and giving to multiple clients it's like hey this is like generally a really great practice um but you know there's only so many hours in a day there are only so many people you can work with uh within you know the week and I I just am so committed to encouragement to uh promoting um you know positivity mental health and well-being and overall health that I wanted to offer something that was meeting many of the pain points that kept coming up in in in different sessions with different clients so we one of the things we never really we don't talk that much about is how hard it is to uh to um make friends in adulthood and the pandemic was really challenging for many people yeah maybe didn't have a really big social network or maybe it was the pandemic that had them coming to the reality that they didn't have uh the kinds of social supports that they needed in order to thrive and to be healthy and so um out of my my my passion for mental health and and wellness and for community and a sense of togetherness um I've birthed a a a wellness community called My Wellness Village and this is a paid membership uh we do uh three months at a time so each quarter actually this past year we took a break over the summer I think that's going to be uh the way we do it moving forward because I really enjoyed having the Summer off and folks uh bring in objectives a goal that they are really um you know wanting to pursue under the umbrella of just mental health spiritual development personal uh development and growth and myself along with some other experts in those areas we do work weekly workshops we have um weekly check-ins like group kind of accountability check-ins we have um different online platforms that we use so that we promote the community and that peer accountability and it's just an awesome space for people to keep their wellness on that front burner um we all have goals but a lot of the times we get to the middle of the year or the end of the year we realized oh my goodness I did say that I was gonna you know I don't know uh change my patterns around eating or or my movement you know the amount or I was gonna yeah well back to school or I don't know just some various things we all have the goals and then yeah but we forget about them unless something is bringing us back to them consistently so that's what we do in the Wellness Village I love that so for anyone who might be interested do you set this up with a cohort or are people able to is it rolling can you join any time how does it work yeah so uh each quarter I open it up and people can re-enroll which I have a steady group of pilot um members who have been there from the very get-go they call themselves lifers and um and then I market it to my community through social media and then we have new folks that enter um each quarter as well so one thing I haven't done is I which I which I will do because we just closed the the um like this quarter just a few days ago um like I just enrolled my last person yesterday uh for this quarter but I think what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna have to get a wait list because I do uh I know that when it comes to having sort of an open and closed kind of a cart when it comes to these kinds of um I don't know if you call them like a product uh offering operating yeah I like offering better um you you wanna I don't wanna leave anybody out in the cold if you want to be a part I do want people to have a space where they could say hey let me know the next time it's open so usually people message me on social media and then I have my own little notebook that I go to but I but I want to uh create a list that's you know you know it's there people can sign up and then they can have other you know they can receive other kinds of um materials and uh content from me yeah in the meantime yeah so you have actually started a series of entrepreneurial pursuits you have your practice where you work with clients one-on-one couples with families you have My Wellness Village and a few years ago you also wrote a book oh my goodness yes right in 2014 oh my goodness Kate you went digging I went digging okay so it's called The Life Map yes and it's almost a guide right it is it's a guide look at it sitting right here in front of me there we go My Wellness I also perfect wait hold that up for at least several seconds so we can wait for you big viewer perfect yeah people can get it on Amazon it's available on Amazon um it's a guide for writing the blueprint for where you want your life to go and this this book was a 12-year you know it wasn't a 12-year process but it took me 12 years to write the book um and for anyone who has embarked on a journey like this it was self-published you realize okay there's so much work that goes into like putting a book out and then the work actually begins after you've you've kind of published the book now I got to get it into the hands of folks and um I'm so glad you're bringing this up because I think we kind of gloss over that you know well unless you're with a even even if you are with a a major publisher if if you don't have like that popularity already like there's only so much in their budget to promote you and after that season is over the work is really sitting on your lap to do to kind of keep on putting your your product in front of people keep to continue building your platform and so I mean I wrote this book while I was on maternity leave with my third son that was like my project so in Canada uh we get a year off uh for mat leave and you go Canada right and you guys they actually upped it to 18 months now uh they give you 60 percent of your pay that it's got the government um you know it's funded like you get money from the government for that sometimes with some employers they will top you up to like a hundred percent for that time off um and so I thought I'm gonna make the most that I can during this time my husband was on board and supported me you know these were the days that I was out of the house at the you know the coffee shop working doing my thing um and so since that I mean at the time I was on that leave from a from a nine to five job I had my my private practice was my side hustle as it were I've been in private practice for 14 plus years but most of those years I was doing it part-time so if you can imagine okay we've got three kids I've got my full-time job then I've got my um part-time practice you know I'm heavily involved in my community uh very social I've got a lot of things going on you know then you know baby number four uh then after some time I realized I can't juggle all these things I'm going to resign from my nine to five job and go full time in my practice now that requires a whole new level of um you know energy because I gotta figure out how this whole thing will work and be sustainable yeah and so this book went to the complete you know sideline I have it out in front of me now because I am I'm trying to remind myself there's there's a there's a there's a writer part of you Colleen that you need to yeah fostering and and and and and kind of finding yourself back into that discipline and practice of writing consistently so I don't know hopefully hearing a little bit of my story is going to encourage the person who feels a little overwhelmed by all the things that's in their heart you know the passions the goals the aspirations it is hard to do everything at the same time but I think if you are strategic uh and you you know get a good coach okay here's a little plug for Kate right here um I can help you to you know figure out systems so that you can strategically map out how you can um give energy to the various things for the season uh that you're gonna you know be be doing doing it in so yeah that's that's my that's my book journey a little bit of that yes I love that and I know you said we can find it on Amazon I'll make sure that there's a link in the show notes so if you're interested in checking it out and working on your blueprint yes then you can do it where you want your life to go yeah yeah I love that okay let's jump into a couple of quick segments and we will begin with a little this or that okay all right read a book or listen to a playlist listen to a playlist oh I'm so tempted to tell a story right now because I'm remembering at the conference when I stopped by your hotel room and you're playing a song and I was like oh this is good what's the song and you're like I just heard it at the store and then I looked it up and now I'm playing it
I Shazamed it man I was like this song must be in my playlist I just yeah music really moves me yes okay I had a feeling you might say playlist okay um I am who I am or I am always evolving always evolving oh my goodness I love that about life yeah yes go on an adventure or stay in and relax
the truth stay in and relax that's the reality of my life right now that's the season I'm in right now I long to go on adventures more but you know mama of 4 you know running her own business restful time is is gold these days yes okay the more the merrier or more fun with fewer the more the merrier I'm a party girl like it like come over let's break bread let's get some jokes like yeah when when I when my mother asked me how many guests are you expecting she knows like it's like why do you even ask me I don't know how many guests are coming I don't know everyone's excited invited come on and there's good food that's like the ideal situation always more I'm always in my mind I always buy more because the fear is to not have enough for everyone so everybody's always going home with the takeout container
yeah we're the mirror awesome okay here for humor or please be serious here for humor please bring it on yeah I love to laugh love it love it okay all right the second segment we're going to do is rapid fire so with this one I'm going to have a question and hopefully you can provide an answer and these all have to do with things that you like and your preferences okay all right and also hopefully we'll include some great takeaways for our listeners and watchers because you know aren't we all sort of looking for that next thing to engage in or to help us with productivity so I love this part okay something you've read lately that you would recommend to others oh uh Winning The War In Your Mind by Craig Groeschel tell us just a little bit about it so it's um it's a mashup of like CBT and like faith together so well uh he tells Craig Groeschel is a pastor he is the the pastor of the ministry behind the Bible app uh the app the Bible app that most people that have a Bible app on their phone actually use tracking tracking yeah it is yeah he's incredible and he tells a lot of personal stories uh normalizing just the struggle of you know mindset and I have probably recommended this book to every single person that has spoken to me over the past uh I think he he came up with either earlier this year I think he published it yeah it came out earlier this year yeah awesome all right cool I'm gonna have to add that to my list okay something you've watched lately that has piqued your interest oh um so I am watching I gotta look in my phone here it's it's something with subtitles which I never do um but it has piqued my interest it is The Kings I think The Affections Of The King is what it's called um yeah it's called where are you watching it on Netflix okay Netflix The Kings of the The King's Affection it is like yeah it's got me what is this so like what is going on so it's a fiction and it is I don't even know exactly where it is where it's based I should probably read the the description um it is about a uh prince whose wife gives birth to twins um a boy and a girl and the king thinks that it is a threat to have the next prince um be born on the same day as a girl and so he gives the command for the girl to be killed child to be killed and so um the mother obviously is not down for that and she tries to well she's she you know with her you know maidens and whoever tends to her her maidens yeah you know it's a royal like you know it's the yeah I'm sorry I'm with you right and so yeah um and so they saved the life of the little girl you know someone whisks her way into the woods or whatever so then fast track like 12 or 13 years later um the actual prince now bumps into her somehow or or his attendant bumps in it's like oh my gosh you look exactly the same as this prince then they start the prince now gets her to start switching you know with him so here you come and like pretend to be me oh right and and I'm gonna go and like explore some freedoms well it ends up that that little boy gets killed because they think that it's now the girl because the secret a little bit comes out and so now her life she is walking and pretending to be him so it's her story of like pretending to be a prince pretending to be you know a boy so only the mother and her mother's attendants know yeah it's it's really intense and um it gets a little bit gory uh but I am I'm really loving it I'm fascinated I'm fascinated by it yeah I mean I'm like struggling for words right now really sad it's really sad it is so sad but um it's I'm I'm a bit of a romantic too so she ends up sort of there's like a this interest in in in a um in a young man but she is living as the prince
I think that the the in some context he saw her as a woman because they went to do hunting it's a big long thing somehow it was like sort of exposed and he saw her and and so now it's like I don't know what's gonna happen but it's like figuring out like does he actually know that she is like the girl pretending to be the the a boy yeah it's just it's it's really there's a lot of layers there okay so if we're watching this we're gonna be doing some unpacking and thinking okay loaded sounds like a fun one all right a favorite thing right now for you it could be a product an app a tool just something useful that you would recommend to a friend or a colleague so something that I'm really loving right now is um I am trying to put more energy on um my porch decor so thinking about when I open my door to leave or when I come back from a run or a walk and I walk down the street and like oh that's my home that is that's that's my haven so trying to uh kind of lean more into that oh my goodness and you know that that also reminds me of something else that I'm loving which is Reels because I really I did a really cute reel my son was my videographer uh where I did a transition from my Summer decor to my Fall decor it was so much fun it was so yes oh I love that one yeah yeah yeah yeah we'll link up Colleen's Instagram handle this is worth searching back in her Reels to find your son is clever that was really no no no no that was all me he was I was I was the producer excuse me I was the director you know I guess so does that make him the producer because he was holding the camera either way he was just like what are we doing I don't understand he had to film you know when it was still Summer and then after um you know it was after I did the fall decor and I had to wait for my mums to bloom and I had to wait for it to be sunny outside and yeah so he was a little bit like why are we doing this but after he saw the video he was like ah that was good mom that was good yes yes okay so really what you're saying it's not necessarily some specific product but taking a minute to check out your front porch situation yeah and make it appealing and inviting for you so that when you come home you're feeling really good about it actually when I leave and when I leave and when I leave every day I send the kids off to school it's like oh don't you love this
yeah my poor kids are like yes mom it looks great mom yes mom we noticed you added some more pumpkins yes I need the validation that's so sweet oh my goodness okay just two more questions for you what is something that someone would be surprised to learn about you oh that I generally always have a piece of gum in my mouth
you had to take it out before we did this interview I sure did yeah it's like um that's like my number one like addiction I
always have got people always know to ask me for gum because they know I always have some oh that's actually good to know you never know in the future when that might be helpful yeah I feel like a comfort it's it's the only time I take it out is if I'm doing like a recording for a podcast um
yeah that's about the only time that I take it out or like if I'm going
um I guess when I'm speaking when I'm speaking professionally then I will but like I um serve on like the worship team in my church I always have gum in my mouth even when I'm like leaving I always because for me it's like this is what helps it just my mouth to stay like moist to make sure that it's not like yeah it's really bad yeah so she's a gum chewer guys I'm a gum chewer and
people people people have noticed because all my stories um I have some very very um observant people that message me I see that gum Colleen I see that gum Colleen I see that girl it's kind of silly yeah awesome no we love it okay all right last one finish this sentence you'll never see me you will never see me wallowing you'll never see me wallowing I was gonna say you'll never see me you know being like that that negative nancy but there are some sometimes when the negativity will come I acknowledge it I know it I vent about it and then I just move past right because you know the solution finding a way around it it sits on my lap I hold responsibility for that um and so we're not going to sulk about it we're going to figure out what uh what opportunities it presents and we're gonna go about finding those solutions yeah absolutely you know I've heard you say a few times at least about how important it is to keep your peace can you explain that a little bit listen I believe that we have access to peace it sometimes feels hard to believe when we are going through you know a tumultuous season of life yeah but even in the midst of hard times there is the ability to have an inner peace that no one can you know take away from you but you've got to be committed to it it's not a my life is problem free it's not a right I am like toxically positive all the time and not acknowledging pain right suffering you know because that's not healthy it's it's it's knowing that I am well and it will be well I might not know how we're going to change this situation or fix this problem right now but if I am to sit with myself and you know just be um you know kind of if I still myself then I know that the peace is is there and I mean that comes from my faith 100 like I know I consider that that's actually a gift that God's given to us all and I'm committed to holding on to that like nobody's business you're not stealing that for me keep that please yes we will love it keep it well Colleen thank you so much for spending the time today it was so wonderful to talk with you thank you for having me Kate I love this you can find a link in the show notes to connect with Colleen on Instagram and receive her videos where she shares frequent mental wellness tips you'll also see links to visit her website and if you'd like to pick up a copy of her book The Life Map thank you for tuning in and if you enjoyed your time with us today please share this episode with a friend then subscribe follow leave a comment or give a five star review season one of the show will include more chats with top authors experts and influential personalities we will be serving up simplified applied psychology habit theory and quality of life tips and tricks that you can put into action right away until next week I'm Kate Hammer and You Know How To Live
Hello and welcome to the You Know How To Live show my name is Kate Hammer and in just a moment we will have Colleen Blake-Miller with us Colleen is a registered psychotherapist based out of Toronto Canada where she works to combine her advanced degrees in psychotherapy and divinity to embolden women to live full and healthy lives Colleen regularly speaks at conferences and programs across North America when she is not working with her clients in one-on-one in group settings now wherever you are listening or watching from I'm so glad that you are tuned in and hanging out I hope you are ready for my favorite combination of things hopefully a bit of entertainment and of course some takeaways to improve how you work and play and do all the things you do in between please take a moment right now to subscribe follow leave a comment or give a five star review so that we can stay connected and with that let's bring in Colleen Blake-Miller Colleen thank you for joining me today I'm so glad that you agreed to spend some time chatting talking about what you do absolutely thank you for having me on Kate I'm so excited to have some moments that we can chat together yeah absolutely so um just to get everybody on the same page Colleen and I have actually known each other for a few years which is very different from the other interviews that you're hearing from me for many of them it's the first time I've ever spoken with the person but Colleen and I go back a little bit we were introduced to each other by a mutual friend and have been able to work together on some projects we didn't meet in person until very recently do you want to let the audience know when did we meet yeah so we met just this past Summer September is considered Summer still right like the beginning right who can know the weather depending on your phenomenon so we were at a conference together we sat on a panel together uh uh the Southern New England or the New England Coastal Creative Conference right and it was a wonderful wonderful time I love the conference I absolutely loved our panel but most of all I just loved hanging out with you because we have chatted over zoom like I don't know so many times over the phone voice notes back and forth DMs on Instagram so it was just so wonderful to meet in person and to be like yeah she's she's as cool as she is virtually yeah oh my goodness yeah we had a blast and we also had our friend Christina Scaleira on stage with us we talked about the importance of your story as an entrepreneur or in someone you know with any kind of creative pursuit that you can be in your wholeness in all of the challenges and struggles that you faced that you can be showing up as that authentic person all the way around and how to do that and how to do that really well it was great it was nice to be in a space with like-minded uh individuals who are sort of also along you know sort of the the entrepreneurial journey and uh hearing that uh some of your pain points are like common pain points uh sometimes we think hey am I over here in my corner of the world struggling by myself but just hearing the the the commonality between the stories was really impactful very impactful it was helpful to just normalize the struggle yeah yeah so Colleen what you're talking about is how each of us each of the three of us Colleen Christina and I we all shared a little bit of our own stories including the parts that we weren't necessarily the most proud of or that aren't like the most exhilarating but to illustrate the point that it all matters and it's all an opportunity to connect with others
so Colleen you work as a registered psychotherapist for all of us over here in the States can you describe a little bit about what that means and what it is comparable to for the Americans well I don't know that I know exactly what it's comparable to I I hear Americans using the term psychotherapy as well so I suspect that like myself they have you know sort of the educational background where they've had some study in psychology uh and or just psychotherapy and sort of modality like the modalities used uh and applied in talk therapy um and that's basically what day-to-day work looks like for me I am sitting with individuals with couples uh with families as they're navigating challenging seasons of their life you know they recognize my life isn't going the way that I ideally would want it to go or I feel like it should be going and I I need support to figure out how to get on track or figure out what that track should look like or could look like um so it's it's it's a unique um uh space to be in because while we are all the same in humanity uh you know the paths that we uh kind of take to get to happiness wholeness healing um to to find our sense of purpose and fulfill it it's it's unique and different so I love I love the work that I do and I consider it to be a great privilege to be invited into people's stories and struggles uh and to be a witness to their mountaintop experiences as well as to help them document how they navigated the valley uh and got through yeah okay so that's interesting you're saying documenting how they get through that can you describe a little bit about what that might look like so I mean I am someone who uh encourages folks uh documenting tracking their own journey so I'm I'm I always give homework I kind of begin my my work with most clients encouraging them if they haven't already to secure a notebook if that seems to be a barrier I've got you know a bookshelf full of notebooks no excuses yeah no excuses um just because it's important to understand what's happening um it's important to to understand your story it's important to understand like your strengths too sometimes we get so fixated on the problem that we don't um remember hey I actually know how to how to navigate this I've done this in the past and so um and then sometimes too we feel like we might be in low but if we go back to let's say when we first began working together yeah and we compare that low you were at when you first came in versus this there is a huge there's there's been a huge change uh you're actually in it in a better space of course I document my clients journeys because you know I have a responsibility to have client notes and to keep those for you know the amount of time that my college requires but I encourage clients to do the same because we forget we forget sometimes uh about our strengths we forget about the things that we've navigated in the past uh and and and we fixate on on maybe the current issue that is problematic and then um we feel like okay I'm starting from scratch like I'm at ground zero and that's that's never the case
yeah absolutely so you've always done work with an individual or a couple or a family unit um and when you started your work was that your primary group or target or did you also offer group counseling um so I always from like right out the gate I offered individual couple and family therapy okay um my first job you know in the field was I was in the for like the I think the job title was like ICF it stood for individual couple and family like therapist and and so um you know that's kind of what what it what it looked like group work I did when I uh worked for some community agencies not a lot though because I wasn't really hired on to do the group work I generally had roles where I was working sort of one-on-one with either an individual a couple a unit or a fam or some kind of you know constellation of a family and but in my private practice and in some of the community work that I do that's where I would lean a little bit more to the group work and and more so in the last year since um the pandemic that's where I have kind of begun doing a little bit more group work but the group work that I do is actually I guess I would put that under the coaching um category uh it's more sort of like group coaching that that I that I do within my within my practice and I'm loving exploring that world as well yeah okay so I'm angling toward a very specific question but first I think we would just love the clarification um from your definition what what is the difference between a therapist and a coach okay so that's a really good question because because many times folks wonder do I need coaching or do I need therapy yeah um sometimes depending on who you know you're listening to or you know the therapist or the coach you feel like I could I could see myself making you know some forward movement with either one and so psychotherapy or doing uh psychotherapy talk therapy generally is looking going a little bit deeper so you are going to be I'm concerned and curious about the history of a person you're going to be curious um about uh you know traumas that they may have experienced there's often
an element of unpacking difficult things that they have encountered things that have them stuck you know it's like I want to move forward I want to do these things that you know we've outlined that need to get done to get to this goal but I keep kind of getting stuck well what is that what is that stuckness and so you slow it down therapy often it's very slow and very deep um coaching and again I'm not an expert at coaching because I'm I'm slowly kind of wading into those waters uh more and more these days it really is when a person has the clarity and the capacity the ability mentally emotionally um to go after those strategic steps that they know are going to land them uh to that ideal goal you know in your coaching you spend time figuring out what is that goal for personal growth or if it's you know fitness maybe it's like a fitness you know yeah all types of coaches right all types of coaches right if it's a life coach it's like okay I want to you know have my life looking like this or that and and there is a sense of clarity around what I'm going for and then with your coach you strategize the steps that you're gonna take to get there and and as the um you know the the the client you would then I don't even know if that's the right term I'm just using the term that I use for this client um then you go out and you action those steps what I have found is um there are some coaches that I'm closely connected to they often will refer clients to me maybe after some time of doing work with them because they realize they know what to do we've gone over this but they keep getting stuck they can't seem to kind of action these things there's something there's something deeper going on and they need to sort through that before they can sort of come back and and and put their you know hand or head to the plow and move forward with uh just achieving the thing that they say they want to do so does that does that make sense yeah absolutely what I'm hearing a lot of is time spent on digging into the past for the therapist versus time focused on what's going to happen in the future with the coach just mapping it out strategizing I imagine like the coach is like the guide to say all right this is what you say want to do here are the steps yeah with as a therapist I am um I'm not telling my clients what to do right I think that say more on that because I think sometimes if you know if we haven't been in therapy we expect that we're like come on like come fix me like tell me what needs to happen so debunk that for us what happens actually yeah I I have clients asking me that all the time Colleen what should I do just tell me what to do yeah and and and the clients that have worked with me for some time they know like I know you're not going to tell me Colleen but just can you tell me yeah I mean and so here's the thing um you know I will live out the consequences of my actions you will live up the consequences of yours so who am I to tell you what to do I'm not living out those consequences and besides that I believe that you are going to be way more committed to the solutions that are coming from within yourself than the solutions that I have to offer you of course I have an opinion I've got an opinion on everything or thought about everything but it's not my place as your therapist to even share that with you you know in in certain contexts yes of course you're going to um you know kind of give some thoughts about things but more importantly than your therapist's opinion or views or convictions is your own as the client and getting really clear on what that is you know a lot of the times we are bogged down and we are immobilized because we're weighed down by the opinions and the perceived you know opinions of other people and and and not having clarity on your vision your values your sense of purpose uh what you really believe is the best for you that is uh very problematic and it gets in the way of forward movement so in therapy we get to make space slow things down so that clients can figure that out together and so it's a slower pace where you know coaching it's like okay um by the time we're done the six weeks or 12 weeks together I would have shown you my strategy because a lot of coaches have their own kind of curriculum that they walk their clients through it's like we're going to do bam bam bam bam bam bam bam you can't really give those guarantees in therapy you know for some clients you could come in and it's just like a session it's happened before and it's like wow I have you know had that aha moment the light bulb is off I have clarity I think I know you know like thank you this is what I needed and off they go and others it's gonna be a longer process um I've had I have clients that I see for a short period of time I have clients that I've seen for longer uh as well so everybody's situation and story is different so um that's a little of my thoughts of the difference between therapy and coaching yeah and really the experience and what someone can anticipate so Colleen in doing this for years and years and years you must see some trends some news and I'm not necessarily speaking to the most traumatic ones but maybe even like the more mundane day-to-day concerns that people have would you be willing to share some of the typical gripes that you hear and what sort of advice you give I mean I know you're not telling people what to do but you are giving them some homework and some ideas about how to get some traction so what are people facing right now what are what are some of the issues that are reoccurring that you just keep hearing over and over and over again yeah there's absolutely uh trends uh anxiety is just it's it's on the incline people are just um expressing more and more uh feelings of anxiousness uneasiness being unsettled being confused being unclear um not really feeling sure about themselves about where their life is going about what the future looks like and so the one of the modalities that I work uh from a lot is CBT that's Cognitive Behavioral Therapy so I am always very curious to understand what clients are saying to themselves about what they're going through um you know how you think about a thing and the conversations you have with your thought with yourself about those things is going to affect the way that you feel and so if we want to feel better if we want to um like genuinely um have a better mental health and well-being that we need to be um a little bit more discriminating in terms of what we allow to live in our in our thoughts uh what we allow to you know take precedence or take you know space up in our in our mind and in my work often is helping clients pay more attention to what they're saying about their experiences what they're saying to themselves about the past things that they have been through what they're saying to themselves about the future and helping them to reframe that so that it is empowering you know you are dwelling on empowering thoughts and and working on really believing those uh that you know our work is is heavily about uh you know finding uh truthful and positive thoughts that that they could be dwelling on and saying to themselves continually because yeah in a world that is is full of a lot of negativity and um you know there's you know kind of evil that we experience in the world too right and a lot of a lot of heavy challenges so yeah that's a little of of you know the the trends of of what i see and what the work that I do looks like yeah so at some point along the way in your work you came to some realization that it would be useful to offer another way for people to work on themselves their mental health their wellness all the way around can you tell me a little bit about that realization and then what it turned into so as I said I love what I do um often times the talks that I give the workshops that I you know create they um a lot of the content comes from some of the work that I do with some of my clients so whether it be strategies that I am walking clients through or homework that I keep finding myself repeating and giving to multiple clients it's like hey this is like generally a really great practice um but you know there's only so many hours in a day there are only so many people you can work with uh within you know the week and I I just am so committed to encouragement to uh promoting um you know positivity mental health and well-being and overall health that I wanted to offer something that was meeting many of the pain points that kept coming up in in in different sessions with different clients so we one of the things we never really we don't talk that much about is how hard it is to uh to um make friends in adulthood and the pandemic was really challenging for many people yeah maybe didn't have a really big social network or maybe it was the pandemic that had them coming to the reality that they didn't have uh the kinds of social supports that they needed in order to thrive and to be healthy and so um out of my my my passion for mental health and and wellness and for community and a sense of togetherness um I've birthed a a a wellness community called My Wellness Village and this is a paid membership uh we do uh three months at a time so each quarter actually this past year we took a break over the summer I think that's going to be uh the way we do it moving forward because I really enjoyed having the Summer off and folks uh bring in objectives a goal that they are really um you know wanting to pursue under the umbrella of just mental health spiritual development personal uh development and growth and myself along with some other experts in those areas we do work weekly workshops we have um weekly check-ins like group kind of accountability check-ins we have um different online platforms that we use so that we promote the community and that peer accountability and it's just an awesome space for people to keep their wellness on that front burner um we all have goals but a lot of the times we get to the middle of the year or the end of the year we realized oh my goodness I did say that I was gonna you know I don't know uh change my patterns around eating or or my movement you know the amount or I was gonna yeah well back to school or I don't know just some various things we all have the goals and then yeah but we forget about them unless something is bringing us back to them consistently so that's what we do in the Wellness Village I love that so for anyone who might be interested do you set this up with a cohort or are people able to is it rolling can you join any time how does it work yeah so uh each quarter I open it up and people can re-enroll which I have a steady group of pilot um members who have been there from the very get-go they call themselves lifers and um and then I market it to my community through social media and then we have new folks that enter um each quarter as well so one thing I haven't done is I which I which I will do because we just closed the the um like this quarter just a few days ago um like I just enrolled my last person yesterday uh for this quarter but I think what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna have to get a wait list because I do uh I know that when it comes to having sort of an open and closed kind of a cart when it comes to these kinds of um I don't know if you call them like a product uh offering operating yeah I like offering better um you you wanna I don't wanna leave anybody out in the cold if you want to be a part I do want people to have a space where they could say hey let me know the next time it's open so usually people message me on social media and then I have my own little notebook that I go to but I but I want to uh create a list that's you know you know it's there people can sign up and then they can have other you know they can receive other kinds of um materials and uh content from me yeah in the meantime yeah so you have actually started a series of entrepreneurial pursuits you have your practice where you work with clients one-on-one couples with families you have My Wellness Village and a few years ago you also wrote a book oh my goodness yes right in 2014 oh my goodness Kate you went digging I went digging okay so it's called The Life Map yes and it's almost a guide right it is it's a guide look at it sitting right here in front of me there we go My Wellness I also perfect wait hold that up for at least several seconds so we can wait for you big viewer perfect yeah people can get it on Amazon it's available on Amazon um it's a guide for writing the blueprint for where you want your life to go and this this book was a 12-year you know it wasn't a 12-year process but it took me 12 years to write the book um and for anyone who has embarked on a journey like this it was self-published you realize okay there's so much work that goes into like putting a book out and then the work actually begins after you've you've kind of published the book now I got to get it into the hands of folks and um I'm so glad you're bringing this up because I think we kind of gloss over that you know well unless you're with a even even if you are with a a major publisher if if you don't have like that popularity already like there's only so much in their budget to promote you and after that season is over the work is really sitting on your lap to do to kind of keep on putting your your product in front of people keep to continue building your platform and so I mean I wrote this book while I was on maternity leave with my third son that was like my project so in Canada uh we get a year off uh for mat leave and you go Canada right and you guys they actually upped it to 18 months now uh they give you 60 percent of your pay that it's got the government um you know it's funded like you get money from the government for that sometimes with some employers they will top you up to like a hundred percent for that time off um and so I thought I'm gonna make the most that I can during this time my husband was on board and supported me you know these were the days that I was out of the house at the you know the coffee shop working doing my thing um and so since that I mean at the time I was on that leave from a from a nine to five job I had my my private practice was my side hustle as it were I've been in private practice for 14 plus years but most of those years I was doing it part-time so if you can imagine okay we've got three kids I've got my full-time job then I've got my um part-time practice you know I'm heavily involved in my community uh very social I've got a lot of things going on you know then you know baby number four uh then after some time I realized I can't juggle all these things I'm going to resign from my nine to five job and go full time in my practice now that requires a whole new level of um you know energy because I gotta figure out how this whole thing will work and be sustainable yeah and so this book went to the complete you know sideline I have it out in front of me now because I am I'm trying to remind myself there's there's a there's a there's a writer part of you Colleen that you need to yeah fostering and and and and and kind of finding yourself back into that discipline and practice of writing consistently so I don't know hopefully hearing a little bit of my story is going to encourage the person who feels a little overwhelmed by all the things that's in their heart you know the passions the goals the aspirations it is hard to do everything at the same time but I think if you are strategic uh and you you know get a good coach okay here's a little plug for Kate right here um I can help you to you know figure out systems so that you can strategically map out how you can um give energy to the various things for the season uh that you're gonna you know be be doing doing it in so yeah that's that's my that's my book journey a little bit of that yes I love that and I know you said we can find it on Amazon I'll make sure that there's a link in the show notes so if you're interested in checking it out and working on your blueprint yes then you can do it where you want your life to go yeah yeah I love that okay let's jump into a couple of quick segments and we will begin with a little this or that okay all right read a book or listen to a playlist listen to a playlist oh I'm so tempted to tell a story right now because I'm remembering at the conference when I stopped by your hotel room and you're playing a song and I was like oh this is good what's the song and you're like I just heard it at the store and then I looked it up and now I'm playing it
I Shazamed it man I was like this song must be in my playlist I just yeah music really moves me yes okay I had a feeling you might say playlist okay um I am who I am or I am always evolving always evolving oh my goodness I love that about life yeah yes go on an adventure or stay in and relax
the truth stay in and relax that's the reality of my life right now that's the season I'm in right now I long to go on adventures more but you know mama of 4 you know running her own business restful time is is gold these days yes okay the more the merrier or more fun with fewer the more the merrier I'm a party girl like it like come over let's break bread let's get some jokes like yeah when when I when my mother asked me how many guests are you expecting she knows like it's like why do you even ask me I don't know how many guests are coming I don't know everyone's excited invited come on and there's good food that's like the ideal situation always more I'm always in my mind I always buy more because the fear is to not have enough for everyone so everybody's always going home with the takeout container
yeah we're the mirror awesome okay here for humor or please be serious here for humor please bring it on yeah I love to laugh love it love it okay all right the second segment we're going to do is rapid fire so with this one I'm going to have a question and hopefully you can provide an answer and these all have to do with things that you like and your preferences okay all right and also hopefully we'll include some great takeaways for our listeners and watchers because you know aren't we all sort of looking for that next thing to engage in or to help us with productivity so I love this part okay something you've read lately that you would recommend to others oh uh Winning The War In Your Mind by Craig Groeschel tell us just a little bit about it so it's um it's a mashup of like CBT and like faith together so well uh he tells Craig Groeschel is a pastor he is the the pastor of the ministry behind the Bible app uh the app the Bible app that most people that have a Bible app on their phone actually use tracking tracking yeah it is yeah he's incredible and he tells a lot of personal stories uh normalizing just the struggle of you know mindset and I have probably recommended this book to every single person that has spoken to me over the past uh I think he he came up with either earlier this year I think he published it yeah it came out earlier this year yeah awesome all right cool I'm gonna have to add that to my list okay something you've watched lately that has piqued your interest oh um so I am watching I gotta look in my phone here it's it's something with subtitles which I never do um but it has piqued my interest it is The Kings I think The Affections Of The King is what it's called um yeah it's called where are you watching it on Netflix okay Netflix The Kings of the The King's Affection it is like yeah it's got me what is this so like what is going on so it's a fiction and it is I don't even know exactly where it is where it's based I should probably read the the description um it is about a uh prince whose wife gives birth to twins um a boy and a girl and the king thinks that it is a threat to have the next prince um be born on the same day as a girl and so he gives the command for the girl to be killed child to be killed and so um the mother obviously is not down for that and she tries to well she's she you know with her you know maidens and whoever tends to her her maidens yeah you know it's a royal like you know it's the yeah I'm sorry I'm with you right and so yeah um and so they saved the life of the little girl you know someone whisks her way into the woods or whatever so then fast track like 12 or 13 years later um the actual prince now bumps into her somehow or or his attendant bumps in it's like oh my gosh you look exactly the same as this prince then they start the prince now gets her to start switching you know with him so here you come and like pretend to be me oh right and and I'm gonna go and like explore some freedoms well it ends up that that little boy gets killed because they think that it's now the girl because the secret a little bit comes out and so now her life she is walking and pretending to be him so it's her story of like pretending to be a prince pretending to be you know a boy so only the mother and her mother's attendants know yeah it's it's really intense and um it gets a little bit gory uh but I am I'm really loving it I'm fascinated I'm fascinated by it yeah I mean I'm like struggling for words right now really sad it's really sad it is so sad but um it's I'm I'm a bit of a romantic too so she ends up sort of there's like a this interest in in in a um in a young man but she is living as the prince
I think that the the in some context he saw her as a woman because they went to do hunting it's a big long thing somehow it was like sort of exposed and he saw her and and so now it's like I don't know what's gonna happen but it's like figuring out like does he actually know that she is like the girl pretending to be the the a boy yeah it's just it's it's really there's a lot of layers there okay so if we're watching this we're gonna be doing some unpacking and thinking okay loaded sounds like a fun one all right a favorite thing right now for you it could be a product an app a tool just something useful that you would recommend to a friend or a colleague so something that I'm really loving right now is um I am trying to put more energy on um my porch decor so thinking about when I open my door to leave or when I come back from a run or a walk and I walk down the street and like oh that's my home that is that's that's my haven so trying to uh kind of lean more into that oh my goodness and you know that that also reminds me of something else that I'm loving which is Reels because I really I did a really cute reel my son was my videographer uh where I did a transition from my Summer decor to my Fall decor it was so much fun it was so yes oh I love that one yeah yeah yeah yeah we'll link up Colleen's Instagram handle this is worth searching back in her Reels to find your son is clever that was really no no no no that was all me he was I was I was the producer excuse me I was the director you know I guess so does that make him the producer because he was holding the camera either way he was just like what are we doing I don't understand he had to film you know when it was still Summer and then after um you know it was after I did the fall decor and I had to wait for my mums to bloom and I had to wait for it to be sunny outside and yeah so he was a little bit like why are we doing this but after he saw the video he was like ah that was good mom that was good yes yes okay so really what you're saying it's not necessarily some specific product but taking a minute to check out your front porch situation yeah and make it appealing and inviting for you so that when you come home you're feeling really good about it actually when I leave and when I leave and when I leave every day I send the kids off to school it's like oh don't you love this
yeah my poor kids are like yes mom it looks great mom yes mom we noticed you added some more pumpkins yes I need the validation that's so sweet oh my goodness okay just two more questions for you what is something that someone would be surprised to learn about you oh that I generally always have a piece of gum in my mouth
you had to take it out before we did this interview I sure did yeah it's like um that's like my number one like addiction I
always have got people always know to ask me for gum because they know I always have some oh that's actually good to know you never know in the future when that might be helpful yeah I feel like a comfort it's it's the only time I take it out is if I'm doing like a recording for a podcast um
yeah that's about the only time that I take it out or like if I'm going
um I guess when I'm speaking when I'm speaking professionally then I will but like I um serve on like the worship team in my church I always have gum in my mouth even when I'm like leaving I always because for me it's like this is what helps it just my mouth to stay like moist to make sure that it's not like yeah it's really bad yeah so she's a gum chewer guys I'm a gum chewer and
people people people have noticed because all my stories um I have some very very um observant people that message me I see that gum Colleen I see that gum Colleen I see that girl it's kind of silly yeah awesome no we love it okay all right last one finish this sentence you'll never see me you will never see me wallowing you'll never see me wallowing I was gonna say you'll never see me you know being like that that negative nancy but there are some sometimes when the negativity will come I acknowledge it I know it I vent about it and then I just move past right because you know the solution finding a way around it it sits on my lap I hold responsibility for that um and so we're not going to sulk about it we're going to figure out what uh what opportunities it presents and we're gonna go about finding those solutions yeah absolutely you know I've heard you say a few times at least about how important it is to keep your peace can you explain that a little bit listen I believe that we have access to peace it sometimes feels hard to believe when we are going through you know a tumultuous season of life yeah but even in the midst of hard times there is the ability to have an inner peace that no one can you know take away from you but you've got to be committed to it it's not a my life is problem free it's not a right I am like toxically positive all the time and not acknowledging pain right suffering you know because that's not healthy it's it's it's knowing that I am well and it will be well I might not know how we're going to change this situation or fix this problem right now but if I am to sit with myself and you know just be um you know kind of if I still myself then I know that the peace is is there and I mean that comes from my faith 100 like I know I consider that that's actually a gift that God's given to us all and I'm committed to holding on to that like nobody's business you're not stealing that for me keep that please yes we will love it keep it well Colleen thank you so much for spending the time today it was so wonderful to talk with you thank you for having me Kate I love this you can find a link in the show notes to connect with Colleen on Instagram and receive her videos where she shares frequent mental wellness tips you'll also see links to visit her website and if you'd like to pick up a copy of her book The Life Map thank you for tuning in and if you enjoyed your time with us today please share this episode with a friend then subscribe follow leave a comment or give a five star review season one of the show will include more chats with top authors experts and influential personalities we will be serving up simplified applied psychology habit theory and quality of life tips and tricks that you can put into action right away until next week I'm Kate Hammer and You Know How To Live
