Ep39: The Influential Global Impact of Nurse Coaching- Shakira Franklyn, CNM, MPH, MS, NC-BC

Ep39: The Global Impact of Nurse Coaching- Shakira Franklyn, CNM, MPH, MS, NC-BC Transcript

Nicole Vienneau  00:00

Welcome, everyone, to Integrative Nurse Coaches in ACTION! I am Nicole Vienneau. I am your host and I am also a Board-Certified Integrative Nurse Coach. And today I am thrilled to introduce our next guest. We’ve been, I think, energetically working on coming together for a long time.

And we are inviting Shakira Franklin, who is a Board-Certified Integrative Nurse Coach. She is also the founder of Korpo Wellness. She is also a healer, and an herbalist. So, we welcome Shakira.

Shakira Franklyn  00:41

Thank you, thank you, Nicole. It’s a pleasure to be here. It’s a pleasure to have the opportunity to speak about Nurse Coaching– something I feel so passionate about, something that’s kind of connected my whole existence as a healer in this space, you know.

So, for me to have an opportunity to reach out and speak with others who are listening, it’s going to be a great chat. So, thank you for having me, thank you for giving me the opportunity to share my story because to be listened to is a major thing, it’s an important thing. So, thank you.

Nicole Vienneau  01:20

I agree. I love to hear our Nurse Coaches stories, and our listeners love it too. Otherwise, you would not be listening, listeners. So, we look forward to hearing your story, Shakira. So, we love to take a step back in history, and ask the question: how did you discover Nursing?

Shakira Franklyn  01:43

Wow, the big question. The big question for anyone who is responding to a calling, it’s really when did you kind of realize Nursing may be in your path? For me, was at the age of four. I made this declaration that I wanted to deliver babies. Now anyone who knows me at four, who heard this declaration, parents included, can recall the declaration.

And so as I evolved in my childhood and adolescence, I understood delivering babies to being a physician, an OBGYN. I did not look at it from the lens of a Nurse. Because in my mind, the declaration at four, being wanting to deliver babies, just automatically went to the profession of medicine. So when I was 15, my paternal grandma… excuse me, my maternal grandmother was in a car accident.

She lived in Peoria, Illinois, and I lived in Washington DC. And ultimately, that car accident led her into an ICU experience for probably like three weeks or so. And I was able to spend about a week with her during my spring break, and visiting her. And I just recall the experience of with the Nurses, you know. They were very caring of not just my grandmother, but me.

They were really well attuned to what was going on with her. It was just this way of being and communicating and conveying care to me, that just resonated with me. And now that I’m a Nurse, and I can see that experience from a different vantage point, you know, I know that these Nurses probably understood that they were facilitating, probably the last time, on energy I will be spending with my grandmother.

And they just made that a beautiful experience for me. And so I connected with the profession, really, at that moment. I had the opportunity to see other roles during that experience, but ultimately, I think the connection between Nursing and myself was made at that like… during that timeframe. And then I got to went to college, and I went to Syracuse University, and with the understanding that I will be pre-med.

And something in me was just like: are you really going to do this? Like, I’m not feeling it. You know, I’ve been one of these individuals who have really good conversations with myself, when it’s time to make really good decisions, or we need to make a call here. We’re not playing games, you understand?

Because I wasn’t connecting with what was needed to happen to be a physician. And when I really said no, I’m not feeling the path of a physician, I was already in a university that had a College of Nursing. Because me not connecting with a path of being a physician was not me saying I’m not connecting to a path of health and healing and wellbeing and supporting others on that journey.

I was just making a call not to go that path. I still have my own calling around that. And my school university offered the opportunity for me to continue that journey through Nursing. And it was the best decision that I ever made. I know that, you know, it is my calling, there’s no doubt that I’m in the right profession. And I love how I’ve allowed myself to grow within the profession.

You know, that’s what I continue to see. It’s like you don’t limit yourself. You know, our society can put titles on different things, for whatever reason that we need to help people conceptualize what we’re talking about. And for me, and for us, it’s Nursing in this plane, but ultimately, it’s really about human caring and your commitment to supporting and being helpful to others. So, I found that Nursing was just a venue that fit for me.

Nicole Vienneau  05:54

I love your story.

Shakira Franklyn  05:56

Thank you.

Nicole Vienneau  05:56

I imagine you as four years old. So sweet. And declaring “I want to deliver babies!”

Shakira Franklyn  06:09

Definitely. Yes. And when they know that I’m a midwife, you know, those who heard the declaration will say, “You always said that.”

Nicole Vienneau  06:18

Wow. And then having this experience with your grandmother, and feeling the love and the care and support that you received from Nurses, and they helping you, maybe, I guess, facilitate those last… those last moments with her.

Shakira Franklyn  06:40

Absolutely, Nicole. Like, I’m just gonna take a deep breath. There were aspects of spirituality and health, that were facilitated in that moment, that I didn’t even realize it until this moment that we’re talking, that we’re speaking about it now, where they let me wash my grandmother’s hair in a cardiac ICU unit.

So, the tension I was able to provide to her hair, the braids that I was able to provide to her hair, those which are in her head now and in the grave. And those moments can only have been facilitated by someone like a Nurse. To see beyond what is just, maybe, what’s present and in front of you at the moment in this ICU.

Your day, your shifts– they didn’t see it that way. They saw a moment, they saw maybe a ritual taking place. They supported generational care in a setting that doesn’t necessarily support a 15 year old being in a cardiac ICU unit, you know.

So, I really appreciate now, as I think back to these moments, how we have wound up in the places that we are right now to be able to make the links and to be able to proudly say that I’m a part of a profession that really, truly facilitates human caring and really knows what that looks like.

So, for me, it has been just an amazing journey. And I just even thank you for just that question because it allowed another aspect of understanding that I didn’t even consider until just now. So, thank you, Nicole.

Nicole Vienneau  08:39

Thank you, Shakira, for allowing emotion to be expressed, and through those memories and through the story.

Shakira Franklyn  08:49

It’s important, it’s important.

Nicole Vienneau  08:51

It is important.

Shakira Franklyn  08:52

Yeah. To see the steps to how you want… to understand why you are standing in the place that you’re standing, does require reflection. It’s one of the aspects about Nurse Coaching that I love. You know, I’ve felt like I’ve done my most growth as a person, personally and professionally, has been through the Nurse Coaching process of becoming a Nurse Coach.

And then really kind of living my life with a different set of intention and understanding because of my coaching skill set. That has been a beautiful process, because it allowed me to be free and open up and to kind of tap back into my innate strength. You know, like, we talked about other strengths and tapping into your innate ability to heal– that’s for us too, you know.

And part of the journey is tapping into your own innate power. And when I think about becoming a midwife and one of the reasons, you know, reflection of why that was my journey, I think about how it was important for me to understand and know deep within my core, that humans do have the capacity to heal themselves, they do have the capacity to understand and guide their own health and wellbeing.

And I saw that each and every time I attended a birth. You know, it wasn’t me getting that individual here, it was that individual getting themselves, navigating themselves, through their mother’s pelvis to get here. I’m here to make sure and watch and to provide any intervention that may be needed from me. But by no means do I think I’m the one why you’re here. That’s your own energy.

And so I understand that really well, even when others don’t know that about themselves. And so that’s what I like about coaching, because it’s about really tapping back into that innate ability, your own sense of knowing what you need, and being someone who gets that, and can be a witness and be a guide, and can offer some assistance, however needed, when you need it.

Nicole Vienneau  11:23

I love your expression of Nurse Coaching and tapping into the inner knowing, our inner understanding. And I would love to know a little bit more but with a little twist on it– how it presently is working in healthcare, or how we see, maybe, an inability to connect with inner knowing, and moving towards connecting to inner knowing.

Shakira Franklyn  11:58

You know, it’s a very important question because, as I see it, you have to know the environment in which you thrive best. That’s an important piece to understand for anyone.

And even though we can’t necessarily… we don’t have control over every environment, but I think that if you are in an environment professionally, where it’s not really conducive to you actualizing your potential or… yeah, the actualizing of your potential, then that environment becomes noise.

It becomes something that I can’t hear what I’m truly supposed to be doing. So, to answer that question, it feels like sometimes in healthcare right now, that there’s a lot of noise that prevents the healers from being able to really get the full auditory… the full hearing aspect of it.

And I keep saying hearing because it’s like sometimes we need to know what we’re doing, what we’re supposed to be doing, and if I can’t hear you, I have to turn the noise down, right? And sometimes I feel like the ways that we are functioning, that it’s really noisy. So, I feel like Nurse Coaching helps individuals turn the noise down, so individuals can hear, so they can hear what they need.

And then the Nurse Coach then become someone that can help them support them with goal creating, that helps them achieve the things that they want to achieve. So, I like the coaching is like, listen, it’s noisy out here, but we still have work to do, you understand. You’re here, we want to do work, let’s do the work.

And so that’s how I see, kind of, coaching now for me is I accept that there’s a reality here that may not always be conducive to your health and wellbeing, but that doesn’t negate the fact that this process still must happen. So, how do we get the work done in the context of the environment that we’re in?

And that’s where I feel like I am with Nurse Coaching, is deciding where I feel like I can make a big impact because I have passion around it or I see there’s a need, or maybe there are health disparities that are going on that I want to help and support and address.

And I can clearly see a path of how I can be helpful, and Nurse Coaching provides a path for me to be helpful in a lot of different ways that really pull on all the experiences and education that I have. It kind of gives me an expression for it in a way that I feel like I don’t want to just talk about a paradigm shift, you know, I want to be actually pushing it along.

And so that becomes me living a representation of what I think it should look like. Not necessarily, ideally, this is what it should be, but I’m still kind of in this crazy haze. In order for me to fully express what I’m supposed to be here to express and create, you have to give yourself what you need to thrive.

And I think it’s important to do that. And a lot of times, we are made to feel guilty when we want to invest in our own self, invest in ourselves that will give us what we need to thrive and to self actualize. And I really kind of want to move beyond that. You know, we have so much to offer.

I see a lot of talent, a lot of innovative beings out here that are ready to express self, and ready to take it beyond where we currently are. But because we’re in this kind of interesting place, we don’t always have the platforms that we need, the platform to do so. So, we’re now in a place where let’s create the platforms.

Nicole Vienneau  16:04

Yeah, let’s create the platforms.

Shakira Franklyn  16:06

Let’s create the platforms.

Nicole Vienneau  16:06

Yeah. I want to step back a little bit because I was imagining the noise. I was imagining the noise within the systems within healthcare, and also outside of healthcare. So, it’s everywhere. It’s everywhere, this noise. And I was imagining it as burnout, the term burnout, the feelings of burnout, because of the noise. Lateral violence, violence from patients and families, disparity, health disparity, social disparity, many disparities.

And these things are in our system, it is a reality, and we face it on a daily basis. And yet, you also said, we must come to an awareness that yes, that noise is there, and we can make a choice to quiet the noise by discovering our own wisdom, by listening and hearing what is within us, and how we can choose to shut down some of this noise. That is very powerful.

Shakira Franklyn  17:25

You’re right. To me, we kind of all come to a place where, you know, you find yourself looking for something that is matching what you feel inside or what your intuition is telling you it should be like. You know, that’s a constant kind of energy within me, and how to express that, because I don’t deny that, you know, we’re not arguing if that’s facts. That is, to me. It is facts to me.

So, now it becomes how do you express that, that your understanding is to be true for you. And what I understand to be true is that we are supposed to be experiencing joy and happiness. We are supposed to be able to create a reality that works for us.

We’re supposed to be able to do these things. And we find ourselves in different situations where we’re challenged by that, for a variety of reasons, you know, particularly in our society.

And I still say, in spite of that, we still have to do what we need to do. You know, they become the challenges, they become the lessons on the journey, but it doesn’t mean that we still don’t do the work. I feel like it’s about finding the workaround. It’s about how does this make you creative in developing something or creating something new, that still addresses what you want to address?

I would say, having an understanding my paternal family is from Latin America and the Caribbean, and so there’s always this piece of me that knows that I have family from different parts of the world outside of, you know, the southern United States, which is where my mother’s family’s from, and then they were part of the Great Migration and wound up in the Midwest.

So, my mom grew up in the Midwest, but my father was born in Panama. His mom was born in Guadalupe. My grandfather was born in Panama, but raised in Jamaica. So, there are these roots here that allows me… my roots give me the permission, give me this drive to want to explore the world, that wants to see where I came from, that wants to see what’s different there and what’s going on here.

So, I’ve always just been exposed to travel. My mom has just exposed me to travel all my life. And it’s a passion of mine. I don’t feel, I think, comfortable if I didn’t travel. And so my just being open to different experiences of seeing my own culture, or culture being expressed in different places that I’ve gone to, have really just kind of opened me up in general to wanting to understand health and healing, particularly among different cultures.

And I think it really stems from understanding that I have another cultural aspect of who I am that I don’t understand, necessarily, the roots of the healing, or the rituals that go with healing, per se. So, I like to explore and see this kind of energy for myself, because I love traditional medicine, particularly plant medicine.

I’ve had the opportunity to really get a download that it’s important for me to know plant medicine.

For me as a healer, one of my skill sets is to be an herbalist, is to understand plants, how to utilize them in the context of nature. Really, those aspects of nature and herbalism really are something that I have been told that I need to really gain a different understanding. And that came through my experience as a Peace Corps volunteer. I was a member, I was a global health service partnership volunteer.

It was a special program in Peace Corps that sent doctors and Nurses to a couple of, about five, different countries in Africa to really support the global initiative around human resources for health. So, these were five different countries in Africa that really needed additional healthcare professionals within a system, but you can’t really boost the system with healthcare professionals if you don’t have faculty.

So, they sent doctors and Nurses like myself to… I was sent to Liberia for a year to teach in one of their medical training institutions. And it was like the best experience of my life on a whole variety of different levels. But professionally, you know, at this point, I had completed all my education except for becoming a Nurse Coach. So I was already a midwife, I already had my Master’s of Public Health, already a Nursing professional.

And it was the first time that I was able to utilize all my energy, all my education, to support this particular experience that I was currently in. And the feeling that that provided, to really use everything that you currently have passion for, and it can all be applied in his one particular experience that was ongoing, really stirred and changed me in ways that I really didn’t understand.

I knew things were happening, I need to change what’s happening, but I didn’t really know how great it would be in terms of how I saw myself and what my contributions are, my offerings, how my offerings are being considered by others, you know.

That was well received, that I would come back to Africa, and give up what they would consider so many American comforts, to support, you know, education, midwifery education, Nursing education in Liberia, was really well respected in ways that I don’t think I’ve ever been respected as a healthcare professional in my own country.

But someone could really see the resources that I was willing to offer to better what was going on, was really a transformational experience for me, and that my own leadership, energy was leaving imprints that I wasn’t aware of until I had an opportunity to reflect in other experiences.

So for me, I kind of left Africa, understanding that there was something greater going on that was being alchemized, for lack of better word, at that time. And it wasn’t completely revealed, but I knew that change was happening. But I left Africa with a really deep intention to understand herbalism in a different way.

To also kind of gain a different understanding about how health, healing, and wellness evolved throughout the diaspora. You know, because I was someone, as an African American, I’m representing a healer right now, you understand. I had an opportunity to look at other healers in Africa, but then I’m looking at me here in United States. Well, how did healing energy evolve in the Caribbean?

How did healing energy evolve in other places in Brazil, where Africans were placed throughout the diaspora? How did it alchemize in these different environments, because this is how it alchemized in me right now. So I wanted to really kind of understand that piece more. And I really feel like understanding plant medicine is one of the vehicles in which I do that.

Because I started to see the commonalities of how plants were… like this one plant is in Jamaica, Africa and Costa Rica, you know, it just stimulated my own interest. Like how did this happen? Because when people had to leave their land, what they wanted to bring was something that may ensure their survival.

And that may have been plant medicine, and to really start to see that plant medicine is something that we really have been disconnected from, and that it may be linked to some of our illnesses that we may be experiencing. Because there’s a lack of balance of plant medicine, a part of our health and wellbeing.

And I’m really open to explain that a little bit more, and really looking how culture impacts that, and really understanding and respecting other cultures use of medicine, and making sure that we don’t lose the understanding of that. You know, it’s important to be able to glean the information from past and present, you know, particularly as it relates to healing and wellbeing.

And when there has been a conscious attempt to kind of disconnect people from their past healing abilities, you have to kind of go back in time a little bit, or you have to go back to other places where people were not disconnected from their medicine, to really have an understanding of healing practices and things like that. And that’s what I really do.

You know, when I think about what I have a passion for, I’ll go to Jamaica for a month or two, and study with a herbalist who’s coming out of the maroon community, whose traditions in herbal plant medicine stem centuries. Not disconnected, or not really infused with any other culture outside of the African culture that evolved within that island.

So, I just really feel like, from an intuitive perspective, from a spiritual perspective, we are guided to really heal and support the things that are really right in front of us. And that’s the piece that I think is the beauty about having diversity in your healing environments, is that the creativity, what one cultural community may need, resides in maybe that healer being present. And healers are not a homogeneous group, you understand, we are very diverse, and we have to have a place that’s open that allows that expression.

Nicole Vienneau  27:58

Yes, the combination of Nursing with Nurse Coaching, expanded to a global vision of Nurse Coaching. And you know, one of the things I love about Nurse Coaching is that we combine our passion for Nursing, our passion for coaching, and our passion with many things within our lives together to create what it is that we want to bring to the earth.

Shakira Franklyn  28:31

True.

Nicole Vienneau  28:32

And so when I hear all of your, you know… plants, diversity, connecting back to self and inner wisdom, extending to cultural and then global, maybe you can tap into a little bit more about what I’m…

Shakira Franklyn  28:49

Yes. The vision is great. The vision understands that global wellness is the key because you understand that we’re all interconnected. So even if somebody doesn’t necessarily understand that we’re all interconnected, I feel like as Nurse Coaches, there’s an aspect of you that understands that we are.

And so if I can support you in, for lack of better words, one of the things I say is we pray in your own brick. We have our own brick, a piece of a brick, right? That’s a part of your own foundation, but it can also be a part of the bigger foundation. But in order for you to build upon your brick, we have to repair some of the cracks that life really offers us.

And, you know, my theory is no one goes through life unscathed. So there’s not… I’m not asking you: do you need to heal? Yes, we all need healing. That’s just a part of being human. But the reality is that we don’t always know that piece. So I’m offering an opportunity to really support repairing your brick for your own good, as well as the better good of the community, you know.

I think that we all have to rise together. One of the things that being in Africa really highlighted was inequity, and how much quality of life is lost because of where someone lives and doesn’t have access to. So because we don’t have access to diagnostic type of thing, someone may die of something very basic in Africa that they would never die from in the United States.

And that’s a hard pill to swallow. Particularly, I was there for like a year, and two of my– this happened to two of my colleagues. It takes a toll. But what I’m seeing now with Nurse Coaching, and my experience with Nurse Coaching, and what I believe in is that everyone needs to have access to Coaching.

And everyone needs to have… if you’re a Nurse, you should have access to some of the self-development work that you do in a Nurse Coaching kind of like program, or really, like from a foundational perspective. I don’t recall, as a Nurse, being told how to care for myself in this role as a healer.

But someone… when you think about it, you know, I went from college, and I went from high school to college, when I got out of college at 22, I was a Registered Nurse at Johns Hopkins University, tasked with the responsibility of being a staff Nurse at that type of facility.

That’s a lot of stress to put on, you know, healthcare in general, being a healthcare professional in general is a lot of stress on the person, even when it’s your calling, you know. So when I think about the global aspect of Nurse Coaching and the global energy around it, I think about it in terms of everyone should have access to one: the benefit of a coach, the benefit of Nurse Coaching.

I think that what we have to offer, from a Nursing perspective, but really just to– I don’t know, it’s hard to say, kind of really express, because it’s a vision, and I’m saying I just feel like we all need support, as it relates to, you know, reaching our goals, or getting to that next place or coping with life.

Or, you know, really what it takes to be a whole being, we all need support in that, it’s not like this isolated piece. And what I see is missing is like the support around wholeness in healthcare, whether it’s for the clinician, or whether it’s for the patient. We are still talking, we’re talking about it a little bit, but we’re really… I want to be a reflection of actual doing, you know.

That is showing a reflection of my respect for you as a whole person, and what I’m willing to do to provide support, and you being that best whole person that you want to be. Not what I want for you, but what do you ever want for yourself. And, you know, we have 27 million Nurses out here that are giving.

And that whole reveal, in that Peace Corps experience, really let me know that there’s a different level of support that is needed around Nurse wellness, and healing and making sure that they have what they need to really continue and do that tremendous work that we do in the system globally. Honestly, like, I just see that there’s a lack of support.

And I do feel like Nurse Coaching, even if it’s looking at the perspective of what the Nurse needs are, like I said, around self-development, to even teach self-reflection, to really teach self-care in a way that is like I want you to win. I don’t want… I’m not trying to put you in a system that’s going to eat you up and then don’t give you the tools.

You know, that’s not what I want. So, I see that still. And I definitely see that in some of the institutions, the training institutions in different countries, that that’s not… they don’t have the luxury on some level to even almost think about it like that. But the reality is, it’s not a luxury, it’s a necessity.

And that’s the piece that I think, like, I’m really interested in having conversation about, is really, you know, if you looked at the Quadruple Aim, what does that really look like in a system where the care provider really is cared for so they can do their work? I think that is one thing that I really have questions about.

I think it’s one of the things that ultimately, if I had to put it into terms for healthcare system, what does it really look like? Because right now, it looks like a handful of individuals pulling themselves out of a system because they can’t take it anymore. And maybe they create something that definitely works with them and with the hopes that it’s definitely gonna work maybe for the bigger population, but ultimately, I don’t know if it should be done that way.

I mean, I think we have to look at it in a really sincere and deep way. So that’s kind of where I am, ultimately, when I think about the global aspects of being in the Nurse Coaching space. I do look at it globally, I look at it domestically, local, you know, particularly with some of the work that I do around community health and community wellness.

But I’m also thinking globally, because I do understand there’s a bigger global perspective that’s going on around Nursing in general, and some of the conditions in which Nurses are being asked to perform in low and middle income countries is really… it will blow your mind, it will blow your mind.

So how do we support these who tend to be a little bit younger, these younger healthcare professionals who have their whole career in front of them? But there’ll be no way based on what I saw. I couldn’t even get out the gate in that environment, because it’s so intense and not designed the way it, you know, it should be.

So, I’m thinking about that, and what would that look like in terms of support, and knowing that Nurse wellness in the United States is not gonna look like the same thing as Nurse wellness in Liberia, but the goals can be similar. But the cultural aspects of it, obviously, would look different.

So I think, globally, I’m thinking about what does Nurse wellness look like globally, that allows for one: sustainability, if that’s what you choose to do, and that really can support the real paradigm shift that is supposed to happen.

Because Nurses are really going to be important in that paradigm shift, but they’re not going to be able to do it if they are all jaded and burnt out and can’t be creative and innovative for you to make these shifts happen. They’re not going to be present for you, you know, and then where are we going to be? Not at the table? That’s not going to work either. Global.

Nicole Vienneau  36:59

Global. Yes. Local to global.

Shakira Franklyn  37:02

Yeah, we work together.

Nicole Vienneau  37:04

We all rise together. You know, last last week, I was on a call. It was through the National Academy of Medicine. They just launched their 2022 health worker wellbeing program. And they’ve been working on this over the past five years, to bring awareness to the struggles that healthcare workers, all of us, are facing on a daily basis.

And I was very impressed, first of all, with the work. You know, it takes years. We know a study that comes out today is going to take a decade to get down to the people who actually really need to use it on a daily basis. So, we know that this work takes time. But I’m really connecting to– through, to and through– Nurse Coaching and our ability to use self-reflection.

And you just said, a few times, I am looking towards this globally, I am looking towards I want to have conversations about these things. Because we know that having conversations and coming from a space of from within first, then extends out to the systems that we want to see an impact through.

And Nurse Coaching is such a wonderful way in which to come to the table with these skills, the skill set that that we have. But first of all, the self-reflection that it takes to get to that point. Man, we’ve talked about a lot of stuff.

Shakira Franklyn  38:37

We really have. I think that as I look towards how I want to position my offerings, and being a public health professional and knowing there’s a lot of community health work that I want to do, you know, you look towards– the information is there in terms of what is needed to be healthy, or what the recommendations are, what the research, the evidence has shown.

Some of the challenges that I’ve found, is taking that information and then applying it into the real world. And I would have to say that has been always probably one of my gifts, to be able to take what has been translated in theory to what would need to happen for this to be taken in on a community level.

And I think that’s one of the things that I’m looking at right now, is taking the information that’s already there, and really creating programs and creating opportunities for communities to really engage and have these conversations and be listened to in ways that they need to be. I recently had an opportunity to take a short term assignment to provide Nurse Coaching coaching to individuals who are in a diabetes management program.

And one of the things that were offered was coaching. You know, as a Nurse midwife practicing from probably 2008 to 2021, you know, my lens of healthcare has been through as a provider. So I know how challenging it is to provide care to X amount of patients in X amount of minutes throughout the day, and how that can really seem very regimented.

But to hear a patient perspective of what they’re receiving in a coaching conversation was really enlightening. Because it really allowed me to hear the pieces that are missing from that interaction, and what needs to be added to my interaction with them.

And one thing that I think is missing sometimes is that there’s always not a full understanding of the disease process within the body for that particular patient to fully understand certain things, you know, like, some of the chronic diseases are very complex.

And depending upon, you know, the situation, I’m hearing a lot of information from patients where I’m feeling like they just don’t… they never really fully understood in a different way, like this is what’s going on– the breakdown. So you get what’s going on, so then any interventions that we’re talking about, somehow you can make this connection of why this is working.

I feel like health education, in terms of in our educational system, our school systems, is really much lacking. So I make no assumptions about what an adult learner may understand about their body or the disease they may have been diagnosed with.

But what I am saying is that there is a need to really fill the gap in terms of how healthcare is currently being provided, and its limitations, and really getting the patient to the other side of their own personal health responsibility, and maybe self-management of that chronic disease.

So for me, I really have an interest around this because one: you know, heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, really impact community of colors greatly. And it definitely has an impact in my own particular, my own family on my maternal side. So for me, I don’t see myself really as any different than anybody that I may be attempting to help coach.

You know, I have my own coach to help me around these issues, because I’m fighting energy that you need to deal with, so you can really claim your own health and wellbeing and whatever that mindset is you need to click or adjust. So, you are on that train, and not getting off. You understand? Like, that’s what’s needed.

You’re on the wellness train, friend, okay? And this is what it looks like– you’re eating right, you’re exercising, it’s this and that, you know? So I am no different. I’m trying to win, too. I’m trying to crack the code as well. But what I see is the resilient spirit to not give up, to understand that there are real issues around the challenges and the barriers, but they are not something that cannot be defeated.

You know, so I’m in it for me as well, you know, I’m helping… that’s, again, that’s another reason why you need diversity. I’m here because I’m trying to win too. If I win, you’re winning. Because if I figured it out, you’re definitely gonna figure it out, because I’m gonna give you the answer. Not necessarily fix you, you know, we’re not… not as coaches, not fix you. Rewind.

But I can sit here and patiently wait, you know, and be by your side and ask these great questions, like someone asked me these good questions, and help you figure it out. And then we can go from there. So I looked at Nurse Coaching in terms of the future, like we really need it, particularly when I think about chronic disease management.

It’s a different place, even with you being a Nurse who’s in the system, it’s a different role. It’s a different… it’s not even the same role. It’s a space and a place for conversation that our clients or patients will never… they’re not getting. Like, the system doesn’t hold the space for that. I don’t even believe the conversation should be happening like that in the institution.

The type of intimate conversations that the relationship that’s being developed, that that happens, does happen over time, which is another reason why I like coaching. It’s this development of a relationship, that you can see who I am, I can see who you are. We can have some ups and downs. But ultimately, you see that I’m committed to helping you in the best way that you need it, and it’s not my agenda.

But I do feel like there are some communities of color that are really looking for a different type of support that is lacking right now. And I’m hoping that my focus on population health will really serve as an example of what can happen when you have Nurse Coaches in the community, who are committed to the wellbeing of the environment that they’re in and that they serve.

And what it looks like and what the creativity and innovations kind of look like. And just to have the space to do that, I think it’s important to really have resources to allow things to evolve and give it a shot. I think it’s important. So I’m committed to that piece.

I’m committed to that aspect, that my time, up into this point, can serve as someone who has put their time in in healthcare, who has had a lot of different experiences, that has some wisdom that is really to offer… just really to offer a different perspective, and a different way of looking at healing and how we address wholeness in our wellness approach, knowing that it’s not an overnight situation.

You know, I think that there’s a part of our society, that as technology evolves, and allows time to become… to reduce time, that people understand that that doesn’t necessarily mean that that should extrapolate to everything else. That your health, your wellbeing, your healing is a journey, and that is not necessarily connected to time, per se.

So the reality is allowing things to evolve, is where I am, and to not necessarily giving pressure to a time situation, knowing that everything happens as it should, because you have watched it do so, you have watched things align historically for you. I don’t believe that’s going to be any different moving forward.

I just think that being a Nurse Coach, and going through this process, has allowed me to respect, again, self-development and how it takes shape in one’s life, particularly in Nurses’ life as they’re evolving. And allowing their gifts to come through after they’ve tapped into self, after they have reconnected themselves to themselves. What then happens from there, is kind of where I am.

Nicole Vienneau  47:36

Yes, so good. So, in our last few moments– I don’t want them to end– but in our last few moments, thinking of our fellow Nurses, and what is on your heart that you would like to express to them?

Shakira Franklyn  47:59

I would like to express that your calling is real. How you have been placed in the profession, how you’ve been called to the profession, that is a real energy that you will always be kind of called to honor. And I think Nursing has always been a challenging profession because of it being predominantly a woman seen health profession.

And sometimes how society views women has really, I feel like, challenged our leadership, challenged our ability to really be the innovators and leaders that we really are. And even though that these particular challenges exist, I don’t want them to give up. I don’t want any Nurse, who feels in their spirit that things aren’t right, that how they’re functioning in the spirit of Nursing is not how it should be, to ignore that energy.

That is a real piece that is never going to go away until you address it and look at it. So I think it becomes important that we take stock, and we take a look about… we reflect on what has happened. You know, we have been through a major change. The pandemic shifted a lot of people. It shifted me.

So how one responds to that shift really was an individual piece. You know, for me, I came out of practice. I felt like I needed to do something completely different. But that was because I was already coming from a place where I was evolving. So, where I was didn’t make sense anymore, and I just couldn’t ignore that.

I think, energetically, you’re going to hear, feel things, that don’t feel right. And I think it’s important to stop and reflect on that and reflect on what you’re feeling, and what’s going on, so we’re not ignoring it. So for me, I think, as a Nurse, what I would like to convey to other Nurses is to not ignore energy within you that is telling you to pause, that is telling you that something’s not right, that is telling you that I need to reflect and reset.

I think that is a real piece that is needed to recenter, to reconnect. You can’t just keep going, going going. You can’t keep ignoring something that is not to be ignored. And I think that we have been in a system, our healthcare system sometimes tells us to ignore our own feelings for a better, a common good.

And I’m here to say, I don’t want you to ignore your own energy, I don’t want you to ignore this feeling inside, because it has to be addressed. Your evolution is attached to it. And I think that we have all come to a place, globally, where we need to reflect and we need to take– not necessarily take stock– but we need to understand how the experience has changed us.

We need to understand where do we go from here, because we have come through a storm that tore everybody upside down, you know, twisted upside down. So when I plopped, you boom, was I expected to know… do I expect you to know where you are? Absolutely not. You just came through a major… a hurricane, a tornado, every natural disaster you could think of in one.

Energetically, that’s what it did on a global level, I feel like. So when you finally stopped swirling for a little bit, I expect you to be a little dazed and confused, I expect you to be questioning some things, I expect you to be gathering some things to figuring out where you go from here.

And I think that places, spaces need to be created for that healing to happen. And I think that’s another one of the energies that I’m putting out here, as well, is that piece too. And I know it works, because I’ve done it for myself. So, hold tight, you know. People who understand, your fellow Nurses in the struggle understand.

I think that’s the beauty of what we do, Nicole. That we do understand– not necessarily have the blueprint for getting us out– but we definitely know we have some tools, we have some tools that will allow you to figure out your excavation out of it. Because that’s what’s really needed, everyone needs the tools to dig for that within their own piece.

You know, you’re gonna find something different than I find, Nicole, because we’re not the same people. But I have a couple… we both got… we have some tools that will help get us to the dig, like will help us get to that big dig, as they say. So I think from me creating spaces and opportunities to do the digging, is where I get innovative, and I like to create.

So that’s what I want to ask my fellow Nurses, to really get prepared to do that reflection work that allows them to evolve and go to that next level. Because as a healer, if you see yourself as a healer, you know, it is about evolution, it is about taking the knowledge of the past and looking at what the application will be for the future and understanding your own worth to the process.

Because we all have a wealth of worth to process, you know, everyone has something to contribute. I’m in another pioneering space, which is a cannabis Nursing space. I feel like Nurse Coaching is a pioneering space, meaning you don’t have many, many leaders ahead of you. And you’re kind of all kind of doing your own thing a little bit.

But the reality is, I respect you as a pioneer, I acknowledge you as a leader, as someone who’s willing to say: hey, I understand that this is what’s needed. And even though I don’t have a lot of modeling in front of me, it still doesn’t disconnect me from the value that I see in this.

Nicole Vienneau  54:08

Yes, I see that as being able to create, and you’ve expressed creation so often in this podcast, which is so wonderful and freeing. It could also feel a little intimidating and overwhelming at the same time. But yet there is freedom in creation and, you know, as leaders in Nurse Coaching and establishing what it is that we really want for our future as leaders in this in this realm. Ah, so many good nuggets in this podcast, Shakira.

Shakira Franklyn  54:45

I think it was good. You know, I like deep questions. I like questions that allow me to think about things, particularly in a way, maybe, again– and it happened a couple of different times in our conversation– that I didn’t think about it that way. And that’s the beauty of you being a Nurse Coach, is that you ask these great open-ended questions that allow me to share. Thank you.

Nicole Vienneau  55:09

Yes, thank you for all of your wisdom, all of the, just, things to ponder and consider and reflect upon. Yes. And so, if people are looking for you, which I know our listeners are wondering where they can find you, where would be some good places for them to find?

Shakira Franklyn  55:28

Definitely LinkedIn. I do have my own website that is still under construction, but I have a great landing page. It’s www.korpowellness.org. And I will say that’s it right now. You know, interesting enough, as someone who is building their business and getting ready to launch out and being very mindful of the social media presence, it becomes very important for me to be clear, initially, about what I care about, and what my focus is on.

And I think as you are evolving in Nurse Coaching, sometimes it’s not always clear. You know, it may be that you have a vibe for this, but not necessarily, you know… you may not necessarily want to push out in this direction. And I will say over the last year, I’ve had the opportunity to really kind of see where my interest has really kind of shown itself.

And it’s definitely in the coaching space. I am an INCA faculty member, as well. And I enjoy, really, that support that is given to those who are really learning how to become Nurse Coaches. It’s been an incredible experience to connect with other Coaches and really be a part of their journey.

And I just really enjoy supporting other Coaches and supporting other Nurses as they discover self and really take it to that next level, which I think Nurse Coaching really does. So for me, I’m really being mindful about how I present myself in the social media space. So it’s been a little bit of a time to kind of think that through.

But I’m really… over the last past year, I’ve kind of really gotten a good understanding around, you know, community health, population health, really supporting wellness through the creation of retreat spaces. That has been another place that I have found a lot of healing– in nature, and the importance that nature brings to healing as an herbalist.

It is very hard to not be in nature and understand how plants grow and learning different energies. I just love being in nature. And I love how I learn and the rapidness of my learning and understanding of who I am in the right spaces. I do like immersion experiences. And I think it’s important, when we’re jumpstarting healing, to offer something that really kind of puts you in a space of what we’re doing.

And sometimes I really do find retreats do that, and particularly when they’re facilitated by Nurse Coaches who really bring in interventions that really bring on the aspects of healing and support when we’re looking to reach our health and wellness goals.

So I love doing that in different environments that are not necessarily that can happen in group coaching, or one-on-one, but really kind of evolve when you’re in a curated experience, so to speak, and where those experiences are designed for reflection and growth and things like that.

So, I find myself a curator of retreat spaces, and I really… it connects me to my own passion of traveling and experience different cultures and learning in those spaces.

Nicole Vienneau  59:04

Wonderful. Well, thank you so much for spending your precious time with us, Shakira. We’ll for sure be using all the links to your social media and to your website. So, on our podcast notes. And, just thanks. Thank you so much.

Shakira Franklyn  59:22

Thank you, Nicole. It’s been a pleasure. Thank you so much.