Things I Learned Yesterday Kim Willis

Kim put a call out on Instagram for people to share their stories with her and her next guest accepted that call. Kim grew up with Brooke--they lived in the same neighborhood, went to the same schools and same church, but neither of them knew they were both going through similar experiences at home. Hint: If you're paying attention, life will bring connection and healing in the sweetest of ways.

Brooke House is the mother of four fascinating kids & two ridiculous dogs. She has a BA in Psychology, an MA in Leadership and Human Resource Development along with numerous certifications and licenses focused on trauma recovery. She's the Chief Program Officer for Kendall County Women’s Shelter and spends her time developing staff members and programs focused on a foundation of support for survivors of domestic violence and their families. She’s a powerhouse who’s turned her struggles into fuel for others.

Join Kim and Brooke in this casual conversation as they talk about their experiences growing up, about foster care, trauma and trauma recovery. Here’s the thing: Everybody’s experienced something traumatic in their life—a car wreck, being bullied, divorce, infertility, abuse and sometimes our healing comes when we hear someone else tell their story. Hearing each other’s story helps us feel less alone and more connected to each other.

About six months ago, I started noticing my mood, my energy level and my overall excitement about life. I was caught in a loop, operating out of patterns I’d created years ago. I wanted help navigating me being stuck, but I also knew I didn’t want to sit in a therapist’s office and re-hash all my old trauma. Sarah’s approach is one of the things that makes her work so impactful. She combines her life experiences and training as a certified Life Coach and Somatic Experiencing® Practitioner, to help people who feel overwhelmed with the demands of life move through their current stress and past trauma to create new patterns that help them reclaim their lives with joy and passion. She’s really good at harnessing information and using it to help her clients transform their lives. Join us as we talk about my experience working with her, how the brain and nervous system work and how they store trauma, why breath is so important, and how regulating our stress response can help us create new patterns that help us thrive in life. This episode is packed with goodness, so listen and enjoy.

I’m excited to introduce you to my next guest. Jane Sampson is a seasoned athlete and mom who loves the sports world and values the relationship between kids and their parents. Raising kids to be good athletes AND humans can be hard. Jane knows first-hand how much support it takes to be successful in the sports world. She started playing sports in elementary school and was eventually recruited to play volleyball at The University of Texas at Austin. She launched a coaching company called Raising the Game as a way to educate parents of young athletes, teaching them how to confidently and effectively support their child’s athletic experience. Join us as we talk about her own experience growing up as an athlete and how Raising the Game can support all of us as we navigate the sports world with our kids.

On the day Karen Warner Schueler became a sudden caregiver, she was a wife, a mom, a consultant and business owner, a coach, a runner, a friend, and a consumer of too much Starbucks coffee. She was not a caregiver. Until she was. On that day when her late husband was diagnosed, out of the blue, with stage IV cancer, Karen had no idea that she had instantly joined a silent army of informal, unpaid family caregivers around the world who had also been pressed into sudden service. Join Kim as she talks with Karen about her experience as a sudden caregiver and how she turned her experience into a guidepost for others. You can find her book "The Sudden Caregiver: A Roadmap for Resilient Caregiving" on Amazon.

Listening to other people’s experiences and stories can sometimes be better than therapy. Kim's next guest has had quite the journey building her family. Megan Feuille lives in El Paso, TX with her husband, Jimmy, and their four kids. She’s Managing Director at Beautycounter and spends most days working and wrangling her babies. She struggled with infertility and shares how God miraculously built her family through adoption and getting pregnant… twice. Join Kim and Megan as they talk about the intimate parts of adoption that will open your eyes and give you empathy for both the birth moms and adoptive parents. Her story is beautiful, moving, inspiring, and really special. 

Join Kim as she talks to Becca Kyle, a Functional Diagnostic Nutrition Practitioner who helps exhausted and stressed out mamas, who feel like they’ve tried everything, uncover the root of their weight, hormone, and gut issues. Becca's basically your personal health detective, after you’ve tried everything else. You’ve heard the term “leaky gut” and know about food allergies like gluten and/or dairy intolerances, but have you heard of gut bugs? It seems like everyone is gluten-free or on The Paleo diet and while these seem like trendy things, the food we put in our bodies is important to think about when it comes to our gut health.

Becca's had her own journey with hormone imbalance, gut dysfunction and a weak immune system and is now helping other women find hope and healing through her functional health coaching business. She’s on a mission to educate women and help bring their bodies back in balance. In this episode, Kim and Becca talk about gut health, the importance of understanding our bodies, and how to make the necessary changes for us to live pain-free healthy lives.