Ep51: What it’s like to be a Nurse Coach Practicum Student- Holly Blankenship, MSN, RN

Ep51: What it’s like to be a Nurse Coach Practicum Student- Holly Blankenship, MSN, RN Transcript

Nicole Vienneau  00:01

Welcome, everyone, to Integrative Nurse Coaches in ACTION! My name is Nicole Vienneau. I am your host and I’m also a Board Certified Integrative Nurse Coach. And today we have a really cool guest coming to us all the way from Flagstaff, Arizona. We welcome Holly Blankenship who is a Nurse who is almost graduating with her Master’s, that’s coming this week, she’s going to be walking for that.

That’s super exciting. And she thought it would be a really great idea to be on the podcast to share her journey as an Integrative Nurse Coach student. So Holly is still in her practicum. She’s about midway through. And she took the initiative to say you know what, as a person who is thinking about doing this Nurse Coaching thing, I thought it would be really beneficial to have heard from fellow Nurses who are taking this program.

And we were like, yes, Holly, please come on this podcast! Let’s talk about your journey through this program, and also through your life, and what brought you to this point. So everyone, please welcome, Holly.

Holly Blankenship  01:15

Hi, thanks for having me. I’m so excited to be here and that you guys wanted to do this. I think it’s gonna be great.

Nicole Vienneau  01:22

I do too. I think it’s so worth the conversation, right? There’s so many things that people are curious about when they’re in this program. And you know, clicking Yes, I want to do this program. Listening to your journey and you know, what you’re going through in this program, is going to be so valuable for all of our listeners. So thank you for sharing your time with us.

Holly Blankenship  01:44

Yeah, of course.

Nicole Vienneau  01:45

So we’d love to first go down history lane and talk a little bit about how you discovered Nursing.

Holly Blankenship  01:53

Sure. My first degree was actually for electronic media management. So the fact that I’m on a podcast with you is really funny and kind of a weird moment for me because that’s what I thought I was going to be doing. I had a radio show at NAU, I was the promotions manager. And I thought that I was going to either be involved in TV or radio production.

But after I graduated, and I got out and looking around, I kind of realized, I don’t think this is really going to fulfill me and get like my life’s purpose by doing this. So, you know, we briefly touched on, in communication theory with my first degree, right, Maslow’s hierarchy.

And you look at like the top of the pyramid of that, like self actualization and transcendence. And so I thought, okay, that’s my goal in life, is to get there. But I knew doing the other work was not going to be fulfilling for me. So I did kind of a Eat, Pray, Love before Eat, Pray, Love.

And I went to Honduras with some people to help with building second floor of an orphanage and putting screens on doors. And I just… my eyes were completely open to how people who didn’t have preventative healthcare suffered, died early unnecessarily, didn’t have, you know, things that we take for granted that help us so much.

And during that trip, I thought, Oh, I think what I need to be doing for my purpose, and my job, to make my life fulfilled, is helping other people. So I started working, became a medical assistant, and then a caregiver for Alzheimer and dementia patients.

And I was like, Yep, this is it. So then I started Nursing school at the age of 30, which isn’t that old, but for me, I felt like I was starting over— and became a Nurse back in 2013. So I’ve been a Nurse for about 10 years now.

Nicole Vienneau  04:06

What an amazing story. I am always so amazed and feel such love because all of our Nurses, we all have this story that brings us to Nursing. And yours— you started in media management, like something completely different than Nursing, and then you just knew in your inner wisdom that it wasn’t going to be as fulfilling as you really wanted it to be.

Holly Blankenship  04:33

Yeah.

Nicole Vienneau  04:33

Yeah. And then your spirit of service— going to Honduras and witnessing others who were living lives that were different than yours and realizing that service was a big piece of what you wanted to bring to your life.

And then moving into medical assistant, Alzheimer’s, dementia, and then realizing, ah, Nursing, Nursing school. Ah, I love this. And so tell us this 10 years now that you’ve been Nursing, tell us a little bit more about that journey.

Holly Blankenship  05:07

Well, I started off as a new grad med surg tele float Nurse night shift. So I mean, talk about just jumping full in. That was very hard, you didn’t have like the safe home base, you didn’t know where you were going in the hospital until 30 minutes before your shift. So it was very, very stressful.

And my whole life I’ve been… I’ve struggled with anxiety. In my 20s, it got worse. Luckily, I reached out, I was able to get on anxiety medication, which did help. But it also… being that type of Nurse, and not much pressure, my health just deteriorated in that environment for me.

I was not taking care of myself. I was a great Nurse, at my own detriment. I’m probably type A, I’m an over thinker, I can, you know, be hyper vigilant, which can be good for catching a lot of things. But it was definitely at my own detriment. And so I knew, especially when it started affecting my body, I’d gone a year without having menstrual cycles anymore, and I knew that wasn’t good.

I just didn’t have time to take care of myself, because I was doing all this other stuff for other people all the time, and flip flopping from night shift. I finally did try to figure out what is going on with me, I just I don’t feel good. And I eventually got diagnosed with polycystic ovarian syndrome. So that answered a lot of things for me.

And between Western medicine and an acupuncturist, he was the first person that actually sat down with me and took a holistic look at me and said, you know, how much do you sleep? And I’m like, not much. And sometimes I stay up 24 hours to get back on schedule. And, you know, what are you eating? And I’m like, whatever I can grab and stick in my face really fast.

And he’s like, what about warm made foods and, you know, whole foods? Everything I knew as a Nurse I should be doing, but I wasn’t because I was just in this, you know, and I just thought I have to get through this, and this is what you do. So that was the beginning of learning that holistic modalities can be so useful. It turned things around for me, I started getting cycles, I started feeling better, I started eating better, which I knew I should do.

And then I wanted to try and get pregnant. And that didn’t happen years and years. And then finally I had to go through IVF, and I included IVF with acupuncture, and I started knowing the things I needed to be doing as well with fitness and health and just taking care of my body to help. And unfortunately, my first IVF— that pregnancy ended when I was eight months pregnant, in a stillbirth. My first son. And so… excuse me…

Nicole Vienneau  08:11

We’re with you, Holly.

Holly Blankenship  08:12

Thanks. It’s obviously very traumatic. And it happened at the place that I worked, so that’s another weird thing, because like I’m in the hospital, I’m on the other side. I wanted this so desperately, I wanted to be a mom so desperately, I wanted him so desperately. And it all came to an end.

And I just felt so broken and shattered and almost ruined. Because it was so sad. And I had feelings that I’d never be able to find joy again, I’d never be able to smile again, and that, you know, my existence is just going to be one of grief and sadness for the rest of my life. So I knew that I needed to reach out to someone because I didn’t want to live in that spot forever.

I wanted to do whatever I could to move through it. And I reached out to a therapist. Another person who had gone through some big trauma told me all about EMDR. And I’d never heard of it. And I started working with a therapist once a week. And it was the hardest day of the week. I did it for a full year. It took me a full year, meeting her once a week.

But a lot of the things, on top of the EMDR, were the other things that I already knew and I wasn’t doing again. Are you going outside? Are you walking? Are you being around people? Are you eating the right things? Are you using affirmations when you have this negative self talk that’s coming in?

Are you doing your breathing exercises when you feel like you’re gonna have a panic attack and you’re really anxious. And so it all came back again to like the holistic stuff. And I saw such a difference in myself. Grieving is complicated, it’s not linear. I would have good days after a while and be like, Oh, I’m on my way, and then, you know, I’d be hit with it again, super heavy.

And so I wanted to share this story in particular, too, Nicole, because when I was going through this, really one of the only things that I found hope in was other people that had been through similar things, and had made it through it. Because it just feels like you’re not going to sometimes. And so this was a really important part of being able to share that part of things.

I went through that, I got back into doing what I needed to do to take care of myself. It really helped with my grieving process. I was in a support group, which now I think I would call a healing circle. With Nurse Coaching, I was totally in a healing circle, I just didn’t know it at the time. That was so helpful.

And then after that, I tried to focus on keeping myself healthy and doing those things. I’m very fortunate that I did have my third IVF ended up with the birth of my son, who’s now four. And so I feel very fortunate that I was able to make it through.

Because just that process itself, of infertility, wanting to be a mom so bad, wanting to be part of this club that you don’t think you’re ever going to be part of, and feeling kind of left out, and I know how that feels. And it’s a miracle that he’s here with me. And I want to do all the cliche things that people say about when you have a kid, right?

I want to be the best version of myself for him, I want to be present for him. I want him to see what a healthy person is like, and become a healthy person, you know, by example.

Nicole Vienneau  12:11

Thank you so much for sharing your journey with us, Holly. As we listen to you, we were with you, listening wholeheartedly, holding you up, just sending you so much love.

Holly Blankenship  12:26

Thank you.

Nicole Vienneau  12:27

Yes. You really brought up a few points that are so important for all of us to witness and realize and connect with, and we could connect with them. And these are the realities, one, of Nursing. The realities of the pushing, and the pulling, and the willingness to give of ourselves so much without replenishing, and forgetting about us as a priority.

And then coupling that with the realities of life, and what each of us is faced with, maybe similar, maybe different, but the challenges that we face, and how those can also take us off track. And yet, they also bring us back to ourself.

Holly Blankenship  13:16

Yeah, I mean, I would consider myself a recovering people pleaser.

Nicole Vienneau  13:22

I’m with you!

Holly Blankenship  13:23

I know! And that’s the thing, I think that’s, you know, at the heart of a lot of Nurses, is they want to make people happy, right? And we have a hard time with boundaries. And like, everyone loved me as a Nurse, right? Because I would just do whatever.

And I would go the extra mile all the time. And I would try to take the time to sit and talk to them and braid their hair and do everything. But it was definitely at the detriment of myself at times.

Nicole Vienneau  13:53

I know all of us listening are directly related to that. And then, through this journey, somehow you discovered Nurse Coaching, so, we have to connect the dots with this too.

Holly Blankenship  14:07

Okay, so I worked at the hospital for eight years, and about a year into the pandemic, I— which I think a lot of Nurses were at that time— I was just kind of taking pause and like, what am I going to do? What has my plan been with Nursing? What am I going to do? And I thought this might be a good time to follow the things I’ve always told myself that I’m going to keep learning about Nursing as much as I can.

I knew I wanted to go back to school. I just was really, really afraid to take the leap. I was afraid it wasn’t going to work out. I was afraid I was going to fail. I was afraid we weren’t going to be able to have me go part time, that we weren’t going to be able to pay the bills. And I ended up getting a counselor.

And once again, looking back, I wish I would have known about Nurse Coaching because that would have been a way more appropriate fit for what I needed at that time, because I was looking for someone to walk through the transition with me. And I even, at times, when she’d meet with me, she’s like, “What do you need, Holly?”

And I’m like, I just need someone to kind of talk to, and bounce things off of, and reflect while I try to do this, because I’m really scared, I don’t know if I should do this, this is a big step. And I finally did it. I got a job working remote part time, which I thought was not a possibility in Nursing. But I did that. It took quite a while. But I kept going until it finally happened.

And now I’ve been at that job for about two years. And then I started my master’s program that summer, and was like, I’m doing it, I’m doing it. It’s gonna work out. Even if we can’t go out to eat at fancy restaurants, and I can’t buy new clothes. I needed to stop shopping at Amazon, too. I have a problem. I mean, if I stopped shopping through Amazon, I probably wouldn’t have to work. But that’s another issue in itself.

So I started my master’s, I’m doing my master’s. And then in the master’s program, they’re like, this is what a advanced practitioner Nurse is, and you can do this and that. And I didn’t want to be an NP, I just knew that wasn’t for me. I’m taking the generalist course of things.

And I thought, well, I’m getting this great education, all this knowledge, but what am I going to do with it when I’m out? And honestly, I just started searching online different things that Nurses could do, because I loved working remotely, I loved being able to be present more. I wasn’t so stressed out after work, or on the weekends, that I couldn’t be there with my son.

And I just love, like honestly, playing in the dirt with him on the weekends. Last weekend, we just like lifted up rocks. And you know, he would laugh when I saw nightcrawlers. And I’d kind of scream and he’d grab worms. And like, that’s always the childhood I wanted him to have. And I want to be there with him.

So now I’ve developed what I want to, kind of, right, with my lifestyle. And my stress has gone down, and I’m able to be here around more. But what am I going to do? And I found Nurse Coaching. And I was like, I have no idea what this is, took me a long time to figure it out. And then there were all these different programs.

But what I really liked about INCA was that I’m learning about all these Nursing theorists and taking courses in it in the master’s program, and then I find this program that has a real life, living in our lifetime, Nursing theorist, who’s helping develop this program. And I think she’s like co-director, and she helped write the textbook.

And so I was like, this is legit, this is like evidence based. And I was totally nerding out that Barbara Dossey was part of this program, and then maybe I could be part of this program. And it was… then everything just kind of like clicked. And I was like, I think this is it. I think this is going to be so beneficial for what I want to do because the part of Nursing I loved was sitting with people.

And as you know, a lot of times, things get added to your plate as a Nurse, and you no longer have time to sit with people. Nurse Coaching is so beautiful in that it allows you to sit with people. It allows people to be seen and heard— something that is not the case always in the traditional healthcare sense.

And I was the type of Nurse that wanted to like follow someone from the beginning to the end of their journey. Like I could never be an ED Nurse. I was in it. I wanted to know their family, I wanted to know their story. And being a Nurse care manager, I’ve already been able to apply Nurse Coaching to what I already do.

And I’m like, Wow, I’m starting to learn so much more by talking less, by letting people work out what the barriers are for them. And so it’s been… it’s already been useful for my current role. But my hope and dream is, and I’m full in to Nurse Coaching, I’ve got a business mentor that I’m going to start working with in August after I pass the boards.

And my goal is I’m going to start up my Nurse Coaching business in the fall, which is crazy because if you would have asked me in the beginning, I was still kind of questioning can I do this for a living? Is this a job that like you could make a living doing? And then I finally got to the point where I realized, it’s all about me, and my level of motivation to do this.

So I’m gonna do it. Because I’m super motivated. And I’m all in, and I’m going to give it my best shot. And it’s going to be super hard because I’m going to be an entrepreneur and have to learn about business. But also, that’s so exciting to me that I get to be creative again— that’s what I really liked about my first degree, is I love being creative and coming up with ideas.

And that’s been re-sparked with me, like, I get to do that, too. So I just think it’s such a great fit for what I was looking for. I just didn’t even know what it was that I was looking for until I stumbled upon it. And I just kind of lucked into it, I guess.

Nicole Vienneau  20:46

Perhaps it was divine intervention. It was looking for you, and you were looking for it.

Holly Blankenship  20:52

I think so, yeah.

Nicole Vienneau  20:54

Yes, yes. I love how you brought Barbara Dossey, Dr. Barbara Dossey, into this conversation. She is the co-founder of Integrative Nurse Coaching, and is such a light in this world. And yes, the theory of integral Nursing, and then Nurse Coaching as well.

So, yes, for all of us geeks out there who want to look at Nurse theorists who are so inspiring, Barbara Dossey is one of them. Yes. And then I loved how you brought in the idea of the Nurse coaches versus the counselor, and you know, the difference between the two of them.

Right, there’s a point in time, of course, where we, if we need counseling, we will go to counseling, and then there’s a point in time where we would go to potentially talk to Nurses— Nurse Coaching—  for those aspects. So because you’ve experienced both, what are you seeing as the biggest differences in that and how you see it?

Holly Blankenship  21:59

I probably spent a lot more time kind of leaking energy when I did the transition process with a counselor. I feel like if I would have done it with a Nurse Coach, it would have been a lot more efficient for me. And I would have been supported in a better way to make the life changes that I was trying to make.

So it felt like I was just kind of talking when I was, you know, doing my transition talking with the counselor about I’m so scared of making these big life changes. But with Nurse Coaching, and what I know now, could have had someone that could have helped me really reflect and dig deep on how to reach these goals.

But I had to not only do the counseling, and then I had to figure out how to do the plan too, which Nurse Coaching is so much more of, you know, helping someone intuitively figure out how they’re going to do things, how they’re going to empower themselves to believe and get there to do it.

So the difference to me is it seems more structured and goal oriented and transition based. I mean, it’s really a great thing to use when you’re at a big fork in the road, so to say, and you just need someone to kind of help you walk through, you know ,why you want to do it and how you’re going to do it. So yeah, it would have been… I wish I could have had it then. But here I am now.

Nicole Vienneau  23:23

That’s right, here we are now. Here we are now, and we know that we’re around. So, our listeners, if you are in a state of transition, there are many Nurse coaches out there who can support you and offer you encouragement, offer you, you know, a co-creation of a path that would best support you— what is most important to you. Yes. And then the other thing you mentioned was you are learning so much by talking less.

Holly Blankenship  23:53

Mm hmm. Yeah, that’s… that was a surprise. So obviously, as Nurses, we want to fix things. And we have all this knowledge and we want to educate or give advice, you should do this, you should do that. But a big part of Nurse Coaching is the motivational interviewing.

And I was already familiar with motivational interviewing, because my husband just wrote his thesis on it last December. And so I knew about it. I took maybe two classes as a Nurse in motivational interviewing. And I thought it was really helpful.

And the principle behind it is helping people build self efficacy so that they can reach the goals themselves and figure out, with their own intuition, what the barriers are, right, because they are the experts of themselves. You tell someone, you know, you shouldn’t be drinking four sodas a day, they already know that.

But you have someone talk through it on what do you think you could do to get your blood sugar down? Well, I drink a lot of soda and I know it’s bad. Well, is there something else you could do? Well, I’ve been thinking about maybe switching and trying to do more water, cutting back, right?

So then they’re actually like, they’ve created the plan. They have a buy in, they know what they need to do. And it just, it makes more sense to me than just telling people what they should do. Because that doesn’t really work.

Nicole Vienneau  25:26

No, when people tell me what to do, I’m like, back off already. Yeah. And that’s how I feel inside. Like, you don’t have to tell me what to do. I already know what to do. And yet with Nurse Coaching, it is that beautiful conversation, the self efficacy, the realization that they can choose, they know what’s best for them. They know what their life is. And we create… yeah, we create the space for them to be able to do that.

Holly Blankenship  25:56

Right. Yeah, I haven’t had it come up yet, honestly, where someone has been like, well I have no idea. They’ve always known. Like, oh, I do this, and I know I shouldn’t. Or I should do this more. Well, how can we, you know, how can you do that more? And then we use Nurse Coaching to get to the point where they are able to kind of build a plan to reach that goal.

Nicole Vienneau  26:20

Awesome. So good. We could talk about this all day, Holly. Okay, so I know our listeners do want to know, like, your time in this program, right? So you’re in the middle of your practicum, you’ve already completed your foundation. So the foundations is a lot of the theory, the understanding, the learning about the stuff.

And then in practicum, it’s a whole… it revolves around coaching modalities. So you’re having volunteers sessions, and you’re coaching people. And in addition, I will say there’s a beautiful parallel of self love, self care, self reflection that’s built into this program.

So I’m curious to know, and I know our listeners are curious to know, what has your journey been like so far in the Integrative Nurse Coach Academy’s Nurse Coach certificate program?

Holly Blankenship  27:16

So, I started in January, and I was able to continue working part time, doing my masters and the program. I would dedicate probably about five to six hours a week during foundations. And we’d start doing the peer coaching with each other, which became so useful. And we all started realizing like this works, this is so cool. I’m actually doing stuff. Like, it was practice, but it was working for us. So that was really neat.

And then it got to the point where like, I want more of this, I want more coaching, because this is great. I actually got my own Nurse Coach. I found her by listening to one of the podcast, found her on it, sought her out on Instagram, and I got my own Nurse Coach. Because I think that’s very integral, is that self discovery that you go through as part of the process.

And I want to continue that, there’s not like a finish line of like, I’ve made it, I’m perfect, I never want to be perfect. I don’t want people to think I’m trying to say I’m perfect. Like, oh, I have this great, perfect life and come follow me. It’s about getting through life.

It’s about getting through life, being able to thrive, being able to find joy, being able to enjoy your life. And so the program has really helped me, personally, so much to stay on track with my own goals and be healthy and continue to keep that mindset of wellness and health and self care.

And it’s… instead of being stressed out, like studying and doing all this work, it’s actually felt really fun and exciting to think like, I have people telling me like, you know what, make sure that you’re doing self care, like, you know, but what are you going to do for your self care?

You’re doing a lot right now, what can you do plus self care. And so now it’s like part of my brain, it’s like, Yes, I’m doing all this stuff…. You know what I really like to do? I’d really like to go outside and garden for an hour during my break. Because I know that makes me feel really good. And I just feel like my whole wellness and everything has been elevated by being in the program.

The practicum is super cool, because I’m getting a little taste of what it’s going to be like to have my business and how I want it to be. I get to be creative and provide space for people. And it’s free right now. So that’s even greater for them, that you’re able to provide a service during your practicum for people that are like, wow, this is really cool.

And you’re seeing it and they’re seeing it, and you’re getting to see these whole changes with them and goals being reached during it. Practicum, I would say, is more time, because you do have to make sure, during the practicum, that you’ve got time during the week to have these sessions, which, for me, I usually let them take up an hour.

If… you know, I let them know that if you don’t have an hour, that’s fine, but I will provide an hour for you if you want to. So you do have to have probably a little bit more time during practicum so you can schedule people in weekly. And my goal is at least three a week right now.

And then if I’m able to get five or six, that helps give me a little bit of cushioning for when I want to take a week off and do something else. It’s totally doable. You just have to be— and Nurses are— good with time management.

Nicole Vienneau  30:56

Yeah, as past faculty for the program, every Nurse seemed to always be able to get everything done. And it is a commitment. It’s not an easy class. Like, well, let’s put that out there, right, Holly? This is not an easy class that you can just watch some videos and you get CEs, you are actually asked to participate and be part of this group.

Holly Blankenship  31:22

Yeah, and one of the things that’s helped me during the group is being more vulnerable. Because if I want people to be vulnerable, I need to allow myself to be vulnerable. And our vulnerability can be a source of strength for other people.

So I’m glad that I’ve been able to get to this space where I finally feel confident and supported and good enough to be vulnerable, and help other people through my story and sharing it. And thanks for allowing me the space to talk, and I obviously think the program’s great, or else I wouldn’t have knocked on your door and asked to come talk about it.

Nicole Vienneau  32:08

It’s okay to share your love of something.

Holly Blankenship  32:11

Yeah.

Nicole Vienneau  32:13

So, in our last few moments together, I’d love to ask the question, what is on your heart that you’d like to share with our listeners?

Holly Blankenship  32:24

Wow. So much. Let’s just keep it to one thing. I think the biggest thing that I’m feeling right now is I think a lot of people feel like they’re alone in whatever they’re going through. And a lot of us have to put on a certain face and smile, and pretend like everything’s okay.

But there’s people out there that are like you that are going through something, that are struggling. And I wish people would talk more openly about that, honestly, because I think it would help de-stigmatize a lot. And I think people wouldn’t have to go to such drastic measures if they knew that they’re not alone.

That this is not something that’s weird or strange, and there’s nothing wrong with them. It’s a normal part of being a person. And there’s other people that struggle with things that you do. And you can reach out, and there’s people out there that can be there for you.

Nicole Vienneau  33:33

Our shared humaneness.

Holly Blankenship  33:35

Yeah.

Nicole Vienneau  33:36

Yeah. Thank you. So, Holly, if people would like to catch up with you, is there a place that they can reach out to you?

Holly Blankenship  33:45

Yeah, so as I told you, I’m full in, so my Instagram is @nursecoachholly, is my Instagram. And then from there, you know, just I guess you can kind of follow and see like, how am I going to take off with this. And then when my business comes around, I’ll add a Linktree and all that good stuff so people can navigate and find me and the things that I’m doing.

Nicole Vienneau  34:14

Right, so that sounds fabulous. They can follow you on Instagram. Of course, we’re going to share your link so people can just go down there, follow Holly on her journey through this, and the practicum, and getting your masters and moving on into the world of Nurse entrepreneurship. Exciting times. Yes.

And then I love asking just a few more questions that are totally unrelated. So these are ones you’re just going to have to answer off the top of your head and see what happens. Okay, you’re ready. Snakes or spiders?

Holly Blankenship  34:46

Oh gosh. Spiders.

Nicole Vienneau  34:49

Why?

Holly Blankenship  34:50

I love to garden, it’s so therapeutic for me. And when I’m gardening, there are some snakes that I know of in my yard, and every time, they scare me so much. And I’ve sent pictures to people and they verified, Holly, they’re just garter snakes, they’re fine, they’re going to take care of the mice.

And I just can’t get over it. They just give me the heebie jeebies and freak me out. And if I run across a snake, gardening, I’m done for the day. Like, I can’t. And spiders— I just, I mean, there’s black widows and stuff around, but they just don’t seem as fast and as likely to… I don’t know…. ugh, yeah, I just… no. No snakes. No, thank you.

Nicole Vienneau  35:36

Tell us how you really feel!

Holly Blankenship  35:38

Right?

Nicole Vienneau  35:40

Okay, what is your favorite personal practice for self-care?

Holly Blankenship  35:44

Oh, boy, right now it’s exercise. I found Barre3 up here, and it not only helped me with getting an exercise practice to do routine, but I found a community of women, and that was really cool, because that’s hard to do when you’re not working somewhere, you’re working remote. You can be kind of isolated at times.

And so I found like this community where I’m able to go and move and I feel like a lot of things I’m learning about myself is that in order for me to kind of self regulate with anxiety and stress, and everything, is through exercise and movement. I have to literally work it out.

So I’m becoming one of those people now that’s like, I’ve gotta get my workout in, I just don’t feel right, you know, in order to like, feel normal. So I’m really into Barre3 and exercise right now for my self care.

Nicole Vienneau  36:45

Awesome. Holly, it has been such a pleasure to have you on our podcast. We’re so thankful that you reached out to us to say, hey, we’re over here, we want, you know, it’s such… it’s a beautiful way to use your initiative. Yes, yes. And to share your story.

Holly Blankenship  37:05

Well, thanks so much for having me. I’ve been looking forward to this, and I’m a big fan of the pod, as they say, so I’ve listened to almost all of them.

Nicole Vienneau  37:15

Yay! And now we get to listen to you.

Holly Blankenship  37:19

Wow!