Ep2: How to Make Healthcare Complete – Anna Schlosser BS, RN, NC-BC

Episode 2: Integrative Nurse Coach Anna Schlosser, BS, RN, NC-BC

Nicole Vienneau 

Welcome everyone to Integrative Nurse Coaches in ACTION!  I am Nicole Vienneau, your host and I am thrilled to invite Anna Schlosser from Kingston, New York. Her business is Coach Anna RN. Welcome, Anna.

Anna Schlosser 

Hi, Nicole. Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Nicole Vienneau 

I am so excited to chat with you about everything, Nurse Coaching and other things that are going on in your world.

Anna Schlosser 

Me too. I’m happy to get the conversation out there.

Nicole Vienneau 

I know it’s a wonderful conversation to have to help people understand what Nurse Coaches are doing in their communities, the healthcare consumer, fellow Nurses, fellow Nurse Coaches, all of that. And I feel like we’re just having tea, virtual tea.

Anna Schlosser 

Yes. Well, I’ll have my coffee, I’m ready to go.

Nicole Vienneau 

Oh, awesome. I have my tea, and you have your coffee. So yeah, we’re going to be raring to go here. So, I’d love if you can give us a tiny perspective of your history, specifically to what brought you into Nursing as a profession.

Anna Schlosser 

So, I actually started out with a bachelor’s in psychology. And I ended up not really using that in any specific way. I was contemplating going back to school, maybe for counseling, and I ended up choosing Nursing with the idea that I would eventually become a Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner.

So, I took my first job as a Nurse back in 2008. And I ended up falling in love with medicine. And I never actually went ahead for that certification of Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner, I never went to you know, I never went to school for that and never went to training for that. But then I ended up finding Nurse Coaching later on, which really was really was the culmination of everything. My psychology background, my Nursing background, I just felt like that it brought everything together in a way that made sense for me.

Nicole Vienneau 

So, your history and your education in psychology, and then more education and more knowledge, Nursing base and medical base, and then more education and knowledge in Nurse Coaching. Right? And can you tell us a little bit more about what you mean, as they’re all kind of connected together.

Anna Schlosser 

So, a part of what Coaching is about is really understanding humans understanding the psyche. It’s also about positive psychology. And we use a lot of concepts in Coaching that we find in psychology in Nursing. It’s really those two things that bring about our learning of humans and human interaction.

Nicole Vienneau 

Connecting back to the human.

Anna Schlosser 

Correct.

Nicole Vienneau 

So, what is it that you love about your Coaching?

Anna Schlosser 

What I love about Nurse Coaching is it really gets to the core of the issue. We have in healthcare, we have all the information, we have the knowledge we share and teach and educate. But what Coaching does is we help people integrate this information and implement it in their daily lives.

Nicole Vienneau 

Is there an example that you could give, maybe of a client that you’re working with or that you’ve worked with in the past that that connects that for our listeners who may not know understand what that means?

Anna Schlosser

What comes to mind is I had a client who wanted to incorporate exercising, and through a Coaching conversation, she came up with jogging on the beach, “I want to jog on the beach, and incorporate that into my weekly routine”. As the Coaching conversation went further and further, we revealed that there was an emotional connection, connecting her to her father with being on the beach and going for runs and playing in the sand. So, using that we were able to solidify that action and behavior into her life, creating a stronger connection with it.

Nicole Vienneau 

So instead of just staying on the surface of, “yeah, I want to run on the beach”, you use your innate knowledge to dive deeper so that she could connect to why she wanted to run on the beach.

Anna Schlosser 

Right. Exactly. And so that she could incorporate this healthier behavior into her life in a stronger, deeper way. Yes.

Nicole Vienneau 

In a stronger, deeper way, I think that’s the essence of people being able to sustain habit change. When we say surface and think, “okay, I’m just going to run on the beach”, that can be a quick result and, we may run on the beach for a week or two or six. But then what happens after if we don’t have a connection that goes deeper? Then likely we stopped running on the beach.

Anna Schlosser 

It becomes less meaningful and there’s no motivation behind it anymore.

Nicole Vienneau 

And her connection with her memories of a father and playfulness, allow her that deeper connection and led to sustain the behavior shift.

Anna Schlosser 

Exactly.

Nicole Vienneau 

Awesome. So, in your Coach and Anna RN business, how do you find that works for clients? Do you have a special way of helping people access their deeper connections?

Anna Schlosser 

I personally use meditation, tapping or Emotional Freedom Technique as ways to really connect to our deeper selves to our deeper wisdom and deeper knowing. So that we can find meaning and purpose in life.

Nicole Vienneau 

With meditation, and with tapping or Emotional Freedom Technique was this additional education that you had to achieve?

Anna Schlosser 

Yes, I have a certificate and meditation and guided imagery. Tapping is self-taught. I taught myself that I used it on myself and I realized, “Oh, this is amazing. I need to share this with people!” So that’s when I started to bring it into my practice.

Nicole Vienneau 

Awesome. So, it’s so wonderful to talk with Nurses, specifically. Because we’re always looking for ways to one, help ourselves, which is incredible. But then you know, we have this, this inner love that we want to share externally with our clients, with our patients with our communities. And I love how you just you know, you saw the benefit, you felt the benefits of tapping, so, you said “okay, I’m going to learn more about this. And then I’m going to teach it to others”.

Anna Schlosser 

Yeah. But if you think about it this way, there’s always a book that you love or a restaurant that you love, and you’re excited about it and you want to share it it’s the same thing and Nurses are very much like that, you know, we want to share good information, things that make us feel better or things that make us happier.

Nicole Vienneau 

Absolutely. A quick story on tapping I started to learn a little bit more about that as well. And my cat recently had to have surgery. And so, I started using tapping on My little kitty. First of all, he loves it because I’m always on his head just do a little tap, tap, tap.  But it’s such a powerful thing because it shifts our, our thinking it shifts our feelings about something and creates a new pattern potentially.

So, you probably have a little bit more understanding about what is happening when we’re tapping.

Anna Schlosser 

So, as I understand it, it’s the same premise as acupuncture or acupressure. So, in Chinese medicine, which I’m not an expert of, but as far as I understand it, there are energy meridians or channels of energy. So, things get blocked, we need to open up the flow again. And so that’s what the tapping does. But it’s to me, it’s a little bit more effective.  And beside you’re installing new beliefs in the same way.

Nicole Vienneau 

Amazing, thank you for that explanation. I also know that you are really interested in chakras, and that kind of thing as well. Could you tell us a little bit about your work with clients in that perspective?

Anna Schlosser 

Yes, so I did a series around healing your chakras. So, the chakras are the energy centers of the body, where each chakra holds a certain property. So, like, for instance, the root chakra. You know, that’s the place where if we feel like we don’t belong, we feel like, we don’t have a place in this world, we don’t have the right to exist, which by the way, maybe subconscious beliefs, they might not be in the forefront of our minds, we would want to strengthen our root chakra.

And so, there are seven main chakras, and each holding different energies and properties. So, we look to see if there’s any challenges going on in our lives, and then connecting that to the specific chakra. So, for instance, the solar plexus. If we’re not feeling confident, or powerful, this disempowered we may want to do some, you know, meditation around that and some healing around that, again, tapping is good, and using Coaching techniques around what has you feeling disempowered? So that’s how I approach it in my practice.

Nicole Vienneau 

Okay, so when you connect, because you have all this holistic side, you have the science of healthcare and your knowledge in Nursing and your previous degree in psychology, and, you know, you talked about all the connection of all those aspects. And now you brought in the holistic side of things, too. So, tell us and tell the listeners, how you define Nurse Coaching. What is your vision for it?

Anna Schlosser 

Well, I would define Nurse Coaching as, it’s taking the intuitive abilities of Nurses that we already have, and really expanding it and just adding the Coaching aspects, the Coaching skills, and techniques. My vision for Nurse Coaching is that it will become more mainstream because we are seeing a move towards holistic health, integrating mind body spirit, healing, and understanding that the expert role of the Nurse, the doctor, or the healthcare professional, is not complete.  We can’t just share information and educate, which is very important… But we need to help people incorporate changes and implement these healthier lifestyle changes into their daily lives, through Coaching,

Nicole Vienneau 

Through Coaching, and through different modalities and through the connections that you’re obviously making with our clients. Yeah, I know, you make a wonderful point, the education and the skill of healthcare is there. And it is an important piece of it is a very important piece of it. But what may be missing is the connection to the patient, to the person who is going to make those changes in their lives or those shifts those tweaks that they can then incorporate the lifestyle changes that the healthcare provider wants them to, or things that would benefit them.

But if we’re not really connecting with the clients and the patients and helping them to see that in their lives, then we’re really doing a disservice to our patients in our communities because it’s hard to access that. When big changes need to happen, like, say someone diagnosed with diabetes for the first time, they are like, “Oh my gosh, I have to change all of these things? How will I do that?”  If we just give information and education then what?

Anna Schlosser 

It feels incomplete. And like I said, it is good to have that information. It feels like a really good starting place, but it’s not the entire picture.

Nicole Vienneau 

Right? Yeah. Nurse Coaches take it a step further.

Anna Schlosser 

Yes, exactly. That’s how I feel. We help the individual. You know, as you know, we partner and co create a plan together to make things realistic and sustainable in their lives.

Nicole Vienneau 

Right, realistic, and sustainable. I think those are real key words. Because, you know, when you think of someone who has been diagnosed with diabetes, think of all of those things that they need to change and shift in their life, and how can we make those things sustainable? And achievable when there are so many things. So, when you think of someone like that, who has a lot of changes that they could make, how would you approach them?

Anna Schlosser 

I would first offer support and talk to them about, that they don’t have to do it alone. Coaching is also about, it’s about support, it’s about helping someone through a tough time. And holding that container for them holding that safe space, to help them process all their feelings that they’re going through, when they’re presented with something new, or they’re presented with a crisis. They’re presented with all these changes that need to happen. That’s my first thought.

And from there, you know, we would identify where they want to start first, right? Again, it’s not about teaching, just teaching and educating it’s what feels doable for the person and where they want to start and really looking at it piece by piece going through things methodically with them. And understanding where they are, we talk about the change process, where are they in the change process? Are they still in pre contemplation, contemplation, finding out where the person is. I think it’s something that’s really overlooked a lot. So that all is a good place to start.

Nicole Vienneau 

Yeah. And I feel it, it as you describe all those steps. The space created, you talked about the container and creating a safety net or a safe space for someone to come in. And, yeah, they’re going to have so many thoughts and emotional shifts because of some crisis situation. And really a diagnosis can be considered a crisis and is a shift of major issues in your in your health. And so, creating that safe space helps them to be able to communicate the feelings that they’re having.

Anna Schlosser 

Right, which is necessary. Because you’re just adding to the burden then of you know, what they’re already going through.

Nicole Vienneau 

And Nurse Coaching allows that space. I mean, Nurses in general have been voted, you know, in the Gallup polls. Again, we’ve been voted as the most honest and ethical profession. And so, I see patients and communities, clients, seeing Nurses as that safe space to be able to communicate with and we’re able to spend time with clients and get to the root and create the safety net that they need.

Anna Schlosser 

Yes, that is definitely an honor and a privilege to be in that role. And I’ve seen it for myself with my clients and I’ve seen my fellow Nurses with their patients. And it’s, it’s a big responsibility because people do trust us. So, we need to be able to, to hold that space for them and to be there for them with what they’re going through.

Nicole Vienneau 

The first thing that came to mind where we’re holding space for other people. But we also have to hold space for ourselves. And so that brings me to the topic of self-care, you know, caring about yourself. And I’m curious if you could share a few tips on self-care for our listeners.

Anna Schlosser 

The first thing that comes to mind is, self-care is not indulgent, it’s not luxurious, I think we have this idea that it’s selfish. And I would like for all of us to get over that. I think it can be very simple, but not easy in that our bodies are telling us what it needs. You know, we’re seeing manifestations of stress and anxiety, and we’re ignoring it.

You know, and this is where meditation comes in, connecting to our own knowing and our own wisdom, and taking the steps that we need to take for ourselves, regardless of what other people say, or what other people may feel as right. Doing what we need to do for ourselves and letting go of that shame and guilt around making our own decisions.

I think we also are in a culture that we need to work really, really hard and putting in a lot of hours and totally neglect and sacrifice ourselves and our health. And I would really like to change that mentality.

Nicole Vienneau 

Well, you mentioned that self-care is not selfish. It’s not indulgence, we can avoid acknowledging feelings of anxiety. And we just kind of move on to the next thing because our society has trained us to do that, especially in Nursing. So, I was curious to know a little bit more about your thoughts related to self-care, and maybe some of the practices that you have.

Anna Schlosser 

One of my biggest self-care rituals is in the morning, I wake up and I make myself a cup of coffee. I haven’t phased out coffee yet, so don’t judge me. (laughter) I’m looking at. I’m looking at my caffeine intake. But so, I make myself a cup of coffee, and I sit down. And I savor each sip of coffee very slowly and mindfully. And it helps me to see things in a grateful in a grateful and thankful way.

I slow down, I look at all the things in my life that I am grateful for. And that the things that are working. Now, I just take the morning really slowly, I look out of the window. And I appreciate the trees and I appreciate the beautiful snowy scene, and today there’s a blue sky, you know, I very mindfully go through what I appreciate. I also do some writing. Usually, in my journal, I’ll do some meditating, I work with crystals sometimes you know, holding crystals in my hand, I have one in my hand right now actually.

I notice the anxiety coming up about all the things that I have to do for the day, I make a list. And I approach my day slowly and mindfully. Self-care for me also is not putting so much pressure on myself to do everything perfectly. So sometimes that might mean ordering out because I don’t have the time to go food shopping. And I’m not going to beat myself up about not going food shopping and buying extremely healthy food and cooking myself a meal because I I’m doing other things and I may have other priorities that day. So, self-care for me in that instance, is having compassion and kindness for myself and making choices that are right for me.

Nicole Vienneau 

The first thing that came to my mind as you were explaining your morning is “Anna, can I come?  To your house?”  (Laughter).

Anna Schlosser

Part of that is I try not to look at my phone, my emails, social media, all of that. I put the night before when I go to bed. I put my phone on Do Not Disturb. I try not to look at and look at it in the morning, I’m not always successful at, because you’re responding already.

You have all your notifications on the phone and you’re already having reaction, right? I keep my phone on Do Not Disturb until after my morning ritual, because that’s my time. That’s my time to connect with me. I don’t talk to anyone. I don’t respond to anything. I don’t look at social media until I’m good and ready.

Nicole Vienneau 

It sounds wonderful. It sounds like you are creating your space. Purposefully.

Anna Schlosser

Yes, exactly. Yeah,

Nicole Vienneau 

These are purposeful things that you are doing to create your safe space. And it’s not indulgent, I appreciate that so much, because your safe space creates your, your own ability to affect your clients, and your family, your life yourself, all the people that you touch in today.

Anna Schlosser 

I look at it this way, if my nervous system is not healthy, I can’t be present for others, for me, that time gives me a chance to settle myself to hold and support my nervous system. Because if I jump into the day, I’m going to be like… just that thought, brought up tightness in my chest.

All that like scattered motion, that frenetic energy. It feels alarming to me, even physically, having that physical sensation in my body feels alarming. So, I make sure that that doesn’t happen for me.

Nicole Vienneau

And, when it does happen, or if it does happen, you have already created opportunities for yourself to return back to that reduced level of stress, just by the choices that you make.

Anna Schlosser 

And if I see that happening, if I see myself getting stressed on that feeling starting up, because sometimes, it can’t be helped, you know, I’ll notice it happening. And I’ll say to myself, “okay, we’re gonna get through this. And then we’re going to rest and then we’re going to take our time again, to have that space. So, we’ll get there, don’t worry”. And so, it’s just that self-talk you know, that soothing self-talk,

Nicole Vienneau 

You can learn a lot from just listening to you. And that ability that you’ve created in your life. And I’m sure that with your clients, and the people you work with, can feel your presence, because you’re taking this important time for yourself.

Anna Schlosser 

I’ve been told that I have a calm presence. And I believe that each one of us as Nurse Coaches, we all bring something to the table, something really special. There are people who resonate with us individually.

Nicole Vienneau 

Yes. And you’re right, the more and more that I connect with fellow Nurse Coaches, we each have an individual spark, that can connect with different populations of people. Yeah, which is so valuable as we create these connections.

And as we create this foundation for helping to shift the thoughts of, you know, only focusing on disease, instead, we’re focused on, you know, the wellness side of things and creating the safety for people to have those intricate, sometimes very intricate, and soulful conversations about it.

Anna Schlosser 

Yes, the importance of connection and community.

Nicole Vienneau 

What else? Should I ask you that I didn’t know enough to ask you.

Anna Schlosser 

I feel like I want to say something to our fellow Nurse Coaches. Actually, I’m going to say this to a broader population. So, this is to the Nurse Coach is starting out, to the entrepreneurs who are starting their own businesses.

Keep going.  

It’s scary to be seen. It’s scary to take yourself seriously. But it’s important to keep doing the work because there are people out there who need you. You’re contributing something special. And if you’re feeling called to do it, then it’s the right thing to do.

Nicole Vienneau 

Thank you. I hear you. I feel your intention behind your powerful words. And I know our listeners will feel and hear that as well. Yes, it can be scary and a lot of work.

Anna Schlosser 

Yeah, there’s a lot of personal obstacles, emotional blocks, that for me personally I had to overcome and I’m sure other people who experience it as well. But that’s what we talk about Nurse Coaching, right? We have to do our own inner work our own healing, so that we can be our best selves with others. And that so we can live our best lives too, because it’s important for us to be happy and to feel fulfilled and successful.

Nicole Vienneau 

Absolutely, thank you for that reminder, connection back to what we need and our own self work. Because, you know, if we’re, as Coaches, if we’re asking people to, you know, if they’re wanting to shift behaviors, and we’re helping them get there, there’s gonna be a lot of vulnerabilities associated with those shifts. And with that change in pattern, and if we ourselves don’t understand what it’s like to feel vulnerability or feel the sensations in our bodies of anxiety and shifting that, and then how to address that in ourselves. It comes across as potentially inauthentic as we’re working with our clients.

Anna Schlosser 

Yes, I see that. And I agree with you on 100%. You know, we don’t have to have everything figured out. We don’t have to have all the answers. But we do have to do the inner work, like you said, so that we can hold that space and be compassionate and empathetic and helping someone else through. And through that, and maybe we we don’t understand it completely, but we have an inkling of how to be present for that person.

Nicole Vienneau 

Amazing. Thank you. Thank you for that. So where do you see Nurse Coaching, leading to?

Anna Schlosser 

I see Nurse Coaching, becoming much more mainstream, and having a huge impact on the wellness of our society and our culture. I think Nurse Coaches are special in that we do have our knowledge base as a Nurse, in addition to the Coaching and Coaching skills.

I see them very present. And I know we’re doing the work to get health care to see how important we are. And so, I envision us being in every doctor’s office, in every healthcare setting, in every hospital.  I see us being very present and helping our communities to heal. Anna,

Nicole Vienneau 

Anna, how can we find you? How can we work with you?

Anna Schlosser 

I have a group Coaching program starting February 24. And it runs for six weeks. That is about navigating anxiety and building self-esteem, which we can all use a little bit of.

You can also find me on my website, annaRN.com, on Facebook at Coach Anna Rn, and Instagram at Anna.M.RN.

I want to open the conversation around making better choices, living life by our own rules, unapologetically, I want people to feel empowered in creating their own realities. I want healing to be normalized.

And there are always free meditations and tapping sessions available also on YouTube at AnnaRN.

And I am thrilled and looking forward to working with individuals who are ready and committed to making positive change to like I said, just I want people to feel free. I don’t want them to be hindering themselves anymore and afraid to do what they want and to make the choices that they want to live the lives that they want, have the careers that they want, you know creating their own realities, in that, what do you want your daily life to look like?

And how can we bring in more joy? We forgot about joy, what’s fun for you? You know, like I talked about crystals, and to some that might be silly or woo-woo or whatever your judgment may be. But for me, I friggin’ love them! They bring me so much joy. I love reading about them. I love holding them. That’s just a small example.

You know, I love plants. I love cooking. I love nature. I want people to start remembering what’s great about life, what’s fun, what’s important to you? What’s fun to you?  Stop listening to everybody else, and what they say and what their rules are, because we’ve learned to live by what we think we should be doing.

And I want people to understand that what they want, what they desire, is important and valid. I want to help validate other people’s feelings and experience. I don’t want people to have regrets when they get to the end of their lives and say, “I should have just not cared what other people thought, I should have just went for that thing”. I don’t want people to feel that way and get to that place. You know, I, I woke up to the fact that I get to make the rules, and I get to live my life as I want. I’m the authority here. So, I would like to help others get to that place too.

Nicole Vienneau 

Yes! Capital Y! Capital E!  Capital S, exclamation points.

(Laughter)

Nicole Vienneau 

That was amazing. Thank you. I feel like you were talking just to me.

Anna Schlosser 

That’s how I want everyone to feel. Just for each other again, can you in connection is so important. We need to help each other out.

Nicole Vienneau 

Absolutely. When we help each other out, things just get easier and more inspiration and energies flowing, and we raise the vibration, and we all feel amazing!

Anna Schlosser 

Yeah, yes. That is been such a big lesson for me these last couple of months, not feeling like I need to do everything on my own. Not having to figure everything out on my own, asking for help, reaching out and accepting and receiving support. So important!

Nicole Vienneau 

Words of wisdom to live by. Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Anna. We are going to have all your information in our show notes so that people can find you, healthcare consumers, people looking to live their best life. And we look forward to seeing more of your success over time, influencing people in such positive ways. Thanks for being here, Anna.

Anna Schlosser 

Thank you for having me, Nicole. It’s really fun to be able to speak your mind and connect with other Nurse Coaches. I hope to hear from my colleagues out there.