In addition to the in-person offerings, you can work with me online through LL Coaching. I’ve grown so much just in the last few months of 2024 and am feeling ready to start sharing this incredible energy and growth with you, too. If you feel a soul tug, take a look at what I offer to see what is calling to your soul right now. I offer one-on-one coaching, live courses with small groups, and will soon offer self-paced online courses through my LL Coaching website.
I felt the need to revive my holistic coaching practice with more intention and energy alignment.
In Spring 2023, I started Questions Authority Coaching LLC after leaving the nursing profession (read more about that below). Since then, I joined with Bobbi to create Harmony Wellness and Yoga Center and have relaunched my holistic coaching business under the name LL Coaching. Through HWYC, I offer in-person services including Reiki (energy work) and Raindrop Technique® essential oil massage. I also teach Kundalini yoga classes in the studio and in the area at different event spaces.
Please allow me to introduce myself, I’m a woman of {questionable} wealth and taste. Ha! If nothing else, I do like classic rock and the Rolling Stones.
Hello! I'm Lydia, former Navy Mechanic + Registered Nurse turned Energy Healer + Yoga Teacher...
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Why did I switch from my outwardly successful and lucrative nursing leadership career? I got tired and fed up with trying to heal my body from my head and failing time and again. So, I got into my body+soul and finally am feeling the healing, purpose, alignment and life that I had been seeking for so long.
Read on to learn more about my story and journey here.
2002-2006
2007-2018
2018-2022
2022-2023
Of course, the Navy tried hard to break me of the habit of asking for help if I couldn’t do something on my own. Well, maybe not the Navy so much as my direct supervisors. After all, any branch of the military values teamwork and helping each other out. That’s kind of a backbone principle. But, especially in a sexist work environment where my competence and tits were viewed as a threat, I wasn’t well-accepted when I asked for help.
Yet, still I persisted. I kept moving, pushing, and doing. I was good at everything I put my mind to do. When I got out of the Navy, I decided to switch from being a mechanic to being a registered nurse. Nursing school + Bachelor’s degree + Master’s, all back-to-back. My husband made me promise to stop school for a while after my Master’s so he could have a break from the stress of me being in school for a while. Yup. Me in school stressed him out. I don’t blame him. It stressed me out, too. But I excel at learning, growing, evolving…doing, doing, doing.
I went to work for the world-famous Mayo Clinic and once again, I was excellent at my job; but I still felt like something was missing. I tried for leadership positions, given my degree in Nursing and Organizational Leadership and my past experiences as a leader in the military and home health nursing. But in the giant machine of Mayo Clinic, I didn’t measure up–at least not in loyalty, as I was still so “new” to them. So, I switched nursing units and went from medical-surgical general care to cardiac surgical intensive care.
This is when I found, while I loved learning and growing in a new field of nursing, I missed the coaching and teaching I was able to do as a charge nurse and preceptor on a general care floor.
Ah-ha! I’ve learned something about myself now: I love to coach and teach–to see the lightbulb turn on for others and be part of that process.
When I was recruited by the Dean of the nursing school I had graduated from to come teach there, I jumped at the opportunity. Full time job coaching and teaching nursing students? Sounds like a dream come true! Surely, this is the career move that will allow me to feel fulfilled.
I took on the professor role and found I both loved and hated it. I wasn’t getting to see as many lightbulbs turn on as I had thought I would and I felt I had to be the disciplinarian for my fellow professors who allowed students to walk all over them. Or, I was stuck doing the not fun stuff of grading. And, because I had these terribly high and unrealistic expectations for myself, I put those on my students. Not my shining moment. But I did get to teach in the lab and clinical settings, where I got the opportunity to help students connect the dots and grow as nurses. I loved those classes.
In 2021, I graduated with my Doctorate in Nursing and Organizational Leadership and then took on the Chair role–leading the department under the direction of the Dean. I figured out very quickly that this was not the right move on my path towards finding fulfillment. I was not as well-prepared to take on this role as I thought I was–or as others talked me up to me. And many of my colleagues began bullying and undercutting me in true passive-aggressive fashion. I made a lot of mistakes and even when I publicly apologized and shared my plan to prevent the same mistakes from happening again, they were held against me. It hurt and was incredibly stressful. And it helped make it clear to me that this wasn’t the right place for me once I finally slowed down long enough to listen.
I contracted COVID-19 in January 2022 which developed into long hauler’s syndrome. I was unable to work the first half of that semester, and when I did return to work, I was at less than half of my previous self. I could only work 3-4 hours a day and would then go home and crash. I felt betrayed by my body. Some days, it was too much for me to even watch TV, scroll social media on my phone, or listen to music. ANY stimulation could be too much for me.
So, I became still. I became comfortable with silence. And in the silence and stillness, I began to hear what my body and soul were saying to me.
With my husband’s blessing, I resigned my position at the university. I focused on getting healthy and learning my body’s new limitations. I started to feel really good. Not just again, but in a new way. My stress had melted away. My nervous system had reset and my hormones felt truly balanced.
So, [stupidly] I decided to try out a nursing job again. But not in teaching. I went back to staff nursing in the hospital setting, where my shift length was set and I only worked two to three days per week. I figured this was a good move and should be plenty of rest for my body.
Wow, was I wrong! Within 6 weeks, I was using a walker to get around and felt absolutely terrible again. I was shattered. What could I do? What was I supposed to do with my life if I couldn’t stay in nursing? I got quiet and still again. I listened. And listened.
Then, the best parts of what I loved about nursing came to me: Coaching, teaching, and helping people get to know themselves even better so they can take better care of themselves.
I signed up for Wisdom of the Whole’s coaching academy and started my business, Questions Authority Coaching LLC, shortly thereafter. I began learning different types of energy healing and took courses in Shamanism and Reiki. Now, I love to fuse the two styles together in a way that is truly authentic to me and that is impactful and healing for my clients. I even do Raindrop Technique® bodywork essential oil massage, fused with energy healing, to balance the nervous system and realign your energy body.
In December of 2023, Bobbi and I started planning on how we could join forces and I also signed up for a yoga teacher training program. I loved the Hatha yoga that Bobbi teaches, but wanted to learn a different style, Kundalini yoga, and finally found a program that met my particular needs. I needed to learn Kundalini yoga from a trauma-informed perspective–so many yogis practice Kundalini in a rigid, dogmatic way and that not only isn’t my style but can even be dangerous for the student. No one practicing yoga needs to push themselves to the point of injury–whether that injury be in the physical, emotional, energetic, or mental body.
Stillness
is my medicine.
When I am still and silent, I feel more fulfilled and full of life than I ever have with movement. In stillness I can feel and hear so much more than when I strived to constantly be in motion. I am no longer avoiding the uncomfortable and even painful parts of my human experience and in facing these head-on, I’ve found they dissipate so much more quickly than before.
