From ER Physician to Life Coach with Dr. Iris Van Nespen

Meet Iris Van Nespen, a Belgian emergency room physician turned life coach. She's on a mission to help women, and people in general, reclaim their joy and self-acceptance. Iris emphasizes the importance of recognizing one's own beauty, believing that it leads to a more fulfilling life and, ultimately, contributes to world peace.

Iris delves into the challenge of judgment, both self-judgment and judging others. Drawing from her experience in the emergency room, she emphasizes the need for compassion, especially for patients. Her self-discovery and awareness journey have led her to a more compassionate approach, influencing those around her to do the same.

Reflecting on the healthcare system, Iris sheds light on the paradox doctors face—being overworked, lacking psychological training, and losing a sense of self. She shares a personal story about ignoring health concerns due to her dedication to work, emphasizing the importance of self-care for healthcare professionals.

Iris passionately advocates for a shift towards understanding the reasons behind people's behaviors rather than passing judgment. She touches on the disconnect from nature and the profound impact it has on mental health. Iris encourages reconnecting with the beauty of the planet and embracing our role as part of nature's cycle.

In a poignant moment, Iris shares her experience harvesting apples in France, underscoring the abundance of beauty in the world that often goes unnoticed. Her message resonates with the essence of being present, appreciating life's moments, and acknowledging our interconnectedness with the planet.

Iris van Nispen's journey, from emergency room physician to life coach, highlights the transformative power of self-awareness and compassion. Her insights provide a roadmap for listeners to reclaim joy, foster understanding, and contribute to a more harmonious world.

https://linktr.ee/reclaimyoursparkle

https://www.facebook.com/irisvannespen

Transcript

[00:00:00] Jill: Welcome to the podcast, Iris. I appreciate you taking your time today to talk to me. I'm really looking forward to this. I think you're going to have a different perspective than any of the other guests that I've had on.

[00:00:11] And so so much for joining me.

[00:00:14] Iris: so nice to be here. So thank you for having me. 

[00:00:17] Jill: You're welcome. Can you just tell us a little bit about your background where you're from originally anything that you want to share. Okay, so, 

[00:00:25] Iris: I'm from Belgium. Our capital is Brussels, sometimes people know Brussels better.

[00:00:30] And I'm an emergency room physician. And now I'm also a coach for women who feel a little lost like I did a few years ago to reclaim their joy. That's my, aim now is to make women people in general, but women, I think we, we are even further from our self acceptance and we sometimes don't see our own beauty.

[00:00:57] And I believe that when you start to see your own beauty, Life becomes so much better and I so I try to help people reclaim their joy So that's what I'm doing now. I'm still working as a physician And I'm coaching, I've been coaching mostly physicians, women, female physicians, but I'm open to any woman that feels like life is more than just going through every day through the busyness and the stress and the feeling exhausted.

[00:01:27] Life is so much more and I think we only live once so it's really important to live with the joy and to be vibrant and to be in the moment to see your kids grow up and enjoy it, not just suffer it. So that's one of my missions now because I also believe that when you feel this joy and when you feel when you're present in the moment and you see your own beauty and the beauty of everything that's around you, that's actually also a recipe for world peace.

[00:01:56] I truly believe that when you feel that and when you feel at peace with yourself. You don't want to harm anybody, so there is no hatred towards yourself, and there is no hatred towards anybody else. So it's so important to rekindle that joy, and that's one of my missions as well. 

[00:02:16] Jill: Yes. I love that, and that really does make a lot of sense, that anytime in my life when I have hurt others, It's not been conscious.

[00:02:26] It's not like I've thought to myself, I'm going to go out and I'm going to say something or I'm going to do something that's going to hurt this person. It's been because at that point, I just was in pain and I was overwhelmed and I was not loving myself. And I wasn't loving the way that I felt. And the more that I can be okay with me and my life and where it's at right now, the less that I react harshly to other people.

[00:02:53] You know, people can say something or do something to me that now I'm just kind of like, Okay, sorry, you're having a bad day where in the past it would have triggered me. 

[00:03:03] Iris: Yeah, exactly. So that's also a process I went through a few years ago, and it's been so amazing to catch yourself. When you start reacting instead of deciding how you want to react when you start to like, we were traveling a few days ago and I asked my husband to take the scenic route because I love scenic routes.

[00:03:27] And he was like, no, I prefer to go straight to the highway. And I really got upset. Like I felt. myself becoming angry and I felt even a little bit of rage coming up and I stopped and I calmed down. I was like, what is happening to me? And I realized that I'm repeating my parents pattern.

[00:03:47] And I was like, okay, I really like the scenic route, but I'm not driving. So I'm not the one deciding which route we take. I can offer my opinion. But it's not up to me to decide which road we take. In the end, we took the scenic road because I have a really beautiful husband. But I was like, it's not up to me.

[00:04:05] And just that moment of awareness and this deep breath. And then I apologized and I said, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to do that. And I know where it comes from. And it stayed with me because it was like another moment Of recognizing why you are triggered and how you are reacting in a way that's not very beautiful and not really how I choose to react.

[00:04:28] So it was a little moment, but to me, again, it was like, okay, it doesn't have to be that way. And then he was like, okay, next time we'll see what we do. And it was just, we had a lot of fun after that. but this rage that came up. I was like, whoa, that's a little exaggerated. So that was yeah.

[00:04:45] That's good though, that moment. Before I wouldn't recognize it, and now I recognize it, and I can't stop myself. But it's a process. It's a whole journey. 

[00:04:53] Jill: It is a process and you're right, that recognition of something that you're like, wait, this doesn't have anything to do with this moment because this is too strong of a reaction.

[00:05:03] But most of us don't honor our emotions at all. And so we're so out of touch with them. We don't really. Have the awareness and it is a process and if you don't mind sharing, what set you on your path to kind of changing your life and how you said, it's been a few years, but like, what kind of set you down that path?

[00:05:27] What was the final straw where you were like, I need to make some changes. Well, 

[00:05:31] Iris: I so I worked in South Africa for four years, which was very. Interesting. we had a really beautiful life, but working there as a physician in a hospital was very, very tough. So I was already a little emotionally drained because we see so many quite horrific things.

[00:05:48] And then we moved to Guadeloupe because I thought it was going to be better, but it wasn't. So we stayed there for a year and we came back to Belgium and I was. drained. I was overwhelmed. I was so tense in my body, I realized something wasn't right. So I started working less and less.

[00:06:04] But it didn't change anything. And I remember sitting in the car. I have a few moments like that. I remember sitting in the car in front of a red light and thinking by myself, I have everything I've ever wanted. Like I have a beautiful man. I have three amazing kids. I have a house, I have a car, I have a job that is actually meaningful.

[00:06:22] Why am I not really happy? Why am I not excited? Why? But I didn't have an answer. And then a few months later, I went Christmas shopping and I went into a bookstore to buy presents because I stopped reading a long time ago. I love reading, but I stopped because I thought I wasn't present anymore. When I read, I thought like I was wasting my time.

[00:06:43] And I saw this book, which was called, I don't know if you know, but it's Untamed by Glennon Boyle. Yes. It said untamed, stop pleasing, start living. And it just stopped me in my tracks. And I was like, this is my diagnosis. And I bought it and I read it. And that was a big shift. And then about a month after that I did a workshop online with Tony Robbins.

[00:07:06] And there was one sentence where he said the quality of your life is the quality of your emotions. And I was like the quality of my life for the last. few years has been overwhelmed and stress. That's why I feel so numb. I felt numb. Like I couldn't feel the highs, but I didn't really have the lows either.

[00:07:25] I was just going through life, not being present and just being numb and doing everything I had to do. Like my kids had clean clothes, they had food. I was physically there, not always mentally. And so, then he said What do you want to feel? And I was like, Oh, that's what's missing. my joy. I don't feel this real feeling of joy anymore.

[00:07:50] Like this, where you've just like want to sometimes be loud. Sometimes be can be quiet as well. Just enjoy the moment. that's when I started to see that I had given up my autonomy of my feelings. you can actually regulate your feelings.

[00:08:06] They don't have to happen to you and they don't have to overwhelm you and then you shut them down because you don't want to feel them. You can feel them and start to. understand them and start to see how your body reacts and what's happening inside of you. And then you can, once you felt them, you can release them or you can transform them in something else.

[00:08:27] And I found that so beautiful. it just made me feel alive again that I wanted to share it, this is one of the secrets of life. why doesn't everybody know this? why isn't everybody conscious of this, that we have so much power over our own quality of life?

[00:08:42] And I was like, I need to share this. And that's when I started doing all these courses for myself, but also to share it with other people. And it's beautiful when you see the transformation in other people as well, when they start to realize that it's nothing to be scared of, and that it's actually something that makes you even more empowered to live the life that you choose.

[00:09:04] now I have a whole list of things that I still want to learn and to do. 

[00:09:07] Jill: Yeah, same. There's so many things in life that I still want to learn and want to do. And so a lot of the stress. I can imagine as so you said you're like an emergency room physician, so you're seeing really traumatic experiences multiple times every day, and it's a beautiful job.

[00:09:29] I am so grateful. There are people that do that work after you kind of started to transform. Yourself internally, how did that affect how you showed up as a physician? Did you see that there was a change in the way that you reacted or interacted with people? Because I'm sure it's still hard to witness things, but, I could imagine that maybe there would be a little bit less taking on.

[00:09:56] Of the pain of others when you're more in touch with who you are, but I don't know. That's just kind of what I'm thinking about in my head 

[00:10:04] Iris: that this completely true, at one point before this, I really didn't like to go to work that much anymore. Because I also felt that in the emergency room, we're still doing really like.

[00:10:17] Life and death work, not all the time because there's also a lot of things that shouldn't be there or like people that come because their GP can't see them and little things, but there's always the really life change life threatening situations where you can do something, but I felt really frustrated as well because I feel like we're putting a lot of plasters instead of really helping people to heal.

[00:10:40] So that was already a frustration of mine before. And I was taking a lot of pain inside. And I learned that I don't have to do that to be a good physician and to really help people that it's actually more helpful to empower them instead of me taking it on. So I'm trying now to help people also see that if they change things in their lives.

[00:11:06] especially the food, like food is such a big thing and we still don't talk about it enough in medicine. Like why do you smoke? We have so many people that come with consequences of smoking like this bronchitis and it's horrific people come in and they're almost asphyxiating because they're so bad and you haven't said why do you smoke why do you do this to your body your body is doing all these things for you to be healthy and you put toxins in it voluntarily like so i'm trying to see to help them see it in another way i don't always have the time but i'm trying to put little It's there where I wasn't doing that before.

[00:11:44] And also I'm not blaming as much anymore. it doesn't help. I think it's better to create. An awareness that you have more power than you think, instead of blaming the person for the, habits and things that he or she is doing with her body.

[00:11:58] Jill: It's like we are judging so much. And with this work of looking at yourself more deeply and discovering who you are and what you do and trying not to judge yourself so much because it actually doesn't help finding explanations for why you are doing the things you're doing, understanding them and then changing them.

[00:12:22] Iris: If you want to, it really helps not to judge other people either. So all these people that come in smoking, eating badly, there are reasons for that behavior. And just by blaming them, they're not going to change it. Because the first thing that somebody does when you say why are you smoking?

[00:12:41] it's bad for you. People will, first thing they will do is resist. Instead of when you start to understand why they're doing it and they start to understand why they're doing it, they can decide to switch it without feeling harassed or without feeling judged. And that is something that is really difficult to do for yourself and to do for others, but you also start noticing it.

[00:13:03] When somebody passes you in the street and you have a judgment on them, although you don't even know them, you're like, Oh, I just made a random judgment. Where does that come from? And it's a nice thing to notice. And I don't know if I will ever be able to not judge at all. I don't think I will ever be able to do that, but I notice it now.

[00:13:23] And I know that I'm doing it less and less. And it's very freeing. It's very liberating when you start not to judge people. And you start to see, for example, in the emergency room, one of the things that actually pulled me down as well, is it's very heavy in judgment. by trying not to do it myself, you also see that other people around you change a little bit, start doing it less as well and have more compassion.

[00:13:48] Because if we don't have compassion for our patients, then I don't think we should do this job anymore. Or we should take a break and see what is happening inside of us that we can't have that compassion anymore. 

[00:14:01] Jill: Yes, because I have seen. Doctors that just don't seem to have compassion and I'm sure it's burnout, 

[00:14:09] And that's actually 1 of the things that I'm curious about too, is I volunteer in a hospital in New Jersey, right? So in America, in New Jersey. And there is a lot that is, on the doctors and the nurses, shoulders for them to deal with. And so I can understand how people can burn out.

[00:14:28] But it is interesting sometimes to observe. A doctor that you can just tell that there's just there's no more compassion. They're just going through the motions and not really showing up as well as they could. And I'm trying not to judge because like you, I've really started to shift the way that I view people.

[00:14:49] And really try to, there's like a saying, don't ask what's wrong with you, ask what's happened to you. And when I can view people that way, it's not, like a judgment, but it's frustrating to observe, as an outsider when I'm like, oh, but I want to give like everybody a hug.

[00:15:07] Like, y'all just need a hug right now. And I guess like, that's one of the things too, in the United States. I was very shocked at how poorly doctors and nurses deal with death and dying. I really, coming in, again, I'm a total outsider. I came in from food service. I'm thinking, oh, of course they deal with it all the time.

[00:15:30] Like they have to be okay with it. And it turns out most of them really are not, and at least in medical schools in the United States, they don't even learn about death and dying. They'll learn about all kinds of other stuff, but it's not like they have a class around death and dying or how to talk to people, that their family members are dying.

[00:15:52] So, I'm curious, is it any different, like you said, you worked in Europe, you also worked in South Africa. Is it just the United States, or is it the same all around the world? 

[00:16:02] Iris: It's the same all over the world. we don't talk about it, we don't get any courses about it, it's really confronting.

[00:16:10] So, and I think then you go into the personality of the person, like the doctor or the nurse. Like how emotionally intelligent are they? So no, to me as well, it's been really tough to see sometimes to announce because you have to announce it as well. But we don't get taught it. That's why, for me, this is so important, this self discovery and self awareness journey, because these are things that we can teach others, that we can share with others, and it's not that difficult, but you have to get an opening, andThe thing is with doctors, it's not an excuse.

[00:16:49] We are overworked. We've never been taught how to speak with people. We haven't had one course of psychology. We haven't understood ourselves. The moment you go into med school, it's a really weird thing, because at one point you have to obliterate yourself completely by doing horrific hours, by being present, by not complaining executing what is asked from you, and at the same time You are a doctor, you are a physician, so you have all this responsibility, and you have all these big egos.

[00:17:24] And so it's very paradoxical, you don't exist as a person anymore, but you are a doctor. And I've found that very, to me it's always been a battle, because I never agreed with working so hard, like, 24 hour shifts, and being tired for years. Thanks. On ends, I was really tired all the time and you learn not to stand up for yourself.

[00:17:49] So a really quick story about me. At one point I was working at 24 hour shift and half of my face went numb. And I was like, what happens? Yeah. So I went to the bathroom and I checked if I could still move my face, which I could. So I came to the conclusion that I wasn't having a stroke. I went back to the ER and worked my shift.

[00:18:10] Didn't tell anybody, didn't do a CT scan, didn't do anything. And it took me two months to actually do an MRI because I didn't even believe my own feelings. It was so bad. I was so busy. I was so wonder woman doing my job, my kids, my house, everything that I didn't even believe what I was feeling. And it turned out I had a brain tumor.

[00:18:31] Oh wow. Yeah. A benign one. I was very lucky because if it hadn't been a benign brain tumor, a meningioma, I wouldn't be here. it would probably have been really late, but that's whatmost of us do. We're tired, we have pain, and we just continue doing this job to help people, but we forget about ourselves.

[00:18:51] So in the end, we also forget about the person behind the patient, because we don't even think about the person that we are ourselves again. It's the same thing as what I said in the beginning. You don't see the person behind the patient either. I think there is something like that.

[00:19:06] And if I can do it. If I can work like that, everybody else should be doing it. That's the mentality we are in, like, we get from med school up until the moment. We start to realize that it's not normal or we don't realize at all and we just continue. 

[00:19:24] Jill: Wow. I don't want to say I like that point, but that makes sense that you stopped seeing the person behind the patient when you stopped seeing the person in you, you know, 

[00:19:34] Iris: extremely tough with ourselves.

[00:19:35] Yeah. Like, you're sick, you go to work, you have a fever, you go to work, and then we ask the same thing from the nurses and people that are working with us, but it's not normal when you're sick, you have to be home and get well. So I think that is what is happening, and it's not a good way of being with ourselves, and it's not good, it's not a good way of being with others either.

[00:19:59] And I think that's one of the problems we have in medicine now, and that's also one of the reasons more and more people are leaving, like allopathic medicine, because they don't feel seen and they don't feel hurt, because it goes so fast and we are so busy with helping without seeing who's behind. I think that's for me.

[00:20:18] Like, I don't feel hurt when I go to a doctor so often, not always, but often, so I completely understand why people would think that as well. 

[00:20:27] Jill: It's frustrating to go to a doctor and feel as though they're not hearing what you're saying and then it discourages a lot of people. I mean, I know I don't go to the doctor very often and thankfully I don't need to, at this point, even at 45, I'm still fairly healthy, but times when I have had to, It just makes an already uncomfortable situation even more uncomfortable when you feel like somebody's not listening.

[00:20:56] And I don't know the answer to fix that problem, but, I'm hoping that over time, and I think that's why, again, like, your physician coaching, I think, caught my eye so much because. in that work that you do, because I know even though you said you'll work with all women, but like a lot of them tend to be physicians, have you found that there's going to maybe be a little bit more of a shift?

[00:21:20] Because again, if we can kind of work on ourselves, then the world around us will change, but we have to start with ourselves. We can't change the world. We need to change ourselves and then the world will change with us. And so in your work, have you found that maybe There is going to be maybe a shift towards a more, I don't know, holistic way of caring for yourself as a physician and then that will affect your patients.

[00:21:46] Iris: when I talk to other people, not everybody, but there is more awareness than I thought there was. And with my clients, I've seen them open their hearts because at one point you close your heart and once you close your heart.

[00:22:00] That's when it all starts to go for me to go right, because we still are more feeling beings than everybody says we're rational. No, we're not rational. We are emotional beings. And then we try to rationalize what is happening, but it starts with feeling. And I've seen my clientsgo back to their hearts again, become less anxious as well, because there's a lot of anxiety as well that comes with with that.

[00:22:26] And. More self acceptance, and I don't know how they work now, but I think they are kinder. I think kindness is really like that's one of my two big values is kindness, just to be kind to the other patient to the other person. But you can only do that if you're kind to yourself. And so it's been a really beautiful journey to see how they have changed.

[00:22:48] It goes very slowly, but they have changed their loving of themselves. So I asked them quite in the beginning to write a love letter to themselves and they couldn't they were like, I can't do that. I can't even write one sentence. And now you feel that they're starting to be able to do that, to start and see the beauty in themselves, to start to see the things that they are doing, the things that they are like, why do we judge ourselves so much?

[00:23:15] And I think everybody judges themselves. I judge myself. But when I see some of my clients. And I see how they judge themselves. It's worse than I could ever imagine. And so that is a really beautiful process when you see them switch and you see it in their bodies as well, because that's something I, it took some time to understand as well, it starts not only with your head, it starts in your body.

[00:23:39] When you start to be able to relax your body. So it's also like, how do I relax my body? How do I recognize when I'm tensing up? What can I do to alleviate that? How do I wake up in the morning? Am I all tense in my bed or am I like a jellyfish? Yeah. Like I noticed that often before when I woke up, I would be tense.

[00:24:00] That's means That you don't have a lot of inner peace that you're not calm that you're not relaxed that even in your sleep You're continuing the rat race and I think it's really important to work on that as well Like what is happening in my body and in medicine, we don't make that connection mind body connection.

[00:24:17] It's starting slowly But it's not present yet. It's not really mainstream yet and I've seen my clients change and that is really beautiful to see as well. It's all connected, like your thoughts, the way you move your body, what you feel in your body they're all expressions of who you are and what you're going through.

[00:24:36] And that's also the where you can work to actually change it to actually become more of who you are, because I think we've become less of who we are when we grow up. And I think it's really important to start and realize the person I am, is still there. It's my essence. How can I go back there and at the same time become who I want to be like?

[00:24:59] It's that is something sometimes I find a little bit difficult to explain. You are there and at the same time, you can aspire to become someone that is in your thoughts, in your heart. How do I do that? and you can't just do that with your head. You also have to do that with your body and with your heart.

[00:25:17] That's what I believe. Yeah, 

[00:25:19] Jill: that totally made sense to me. I think you did a great job explaining it. And I do agree that there's only so much that we can change with our mind. It really does have to be a mind, a body, a soul, a heart connection, and be able to do. deep transformations that way. And it's interesting because I'm thinking about how, when I was a child, I really wanted to be a brain surgeon.

[00:25:46] I don't know exactly where the thought like initially got planted in my head. And then I started getting migraines when I was like 10 years old. And so that really like made me like, I want to do this thing. But I had people in my life basically say that I was not smart enough. I was never going to be smart enough to do it.

[00:26:04] And so I just basically decided at some point, I wasn't smart enough. Exactly. I believed them. And. many years later I met a young man in Philadelphia with a group of friends and he was going to one of the, best medical schools in our country to be a brain surgeon. And so I told him that story and he said, I'm telling you right now, you are no less smart than anybody that I'm in school with.

[00:26:29] You could do it. And he was like, even now, if you want to do it. And I was like, I think I'm a little too old now, 

[00:26:33] Iris: but. You're never too old if it's really a dream of yours, but of course, yeah, you know, 

[00:26:39] Jill: that's a lot of schooling that I don't want to miss out on my children being young, but it was very.

[00:26:46] Interesting there was part of me that kind of like heard that and I was like, Oh, wow, because there is, you know, especially hearing you talk about, you had everything that you could ever want. And yet you still had that feeling of like not having joy and I think I'm very similar to you where in the past.

[00:27:06] I wasn't. unhappy. I wasn't happy. I was just kind of numb. I was just going through the motions. I didn't get really sad and depressed. I didn't get really excited. I was just existing and part of me, would kind of think to myself like, well, if I would have maybe gone after my dream of being a doctor, then that's when I would have felt better.

[00:27:25] And it's like, there's never going to be that thing. If we're continuing to just try to fill a hole with other things until we work on it ourselves. And so I could have gone after being the doctor and doing all the things. And I still would have potentially felt exactly the same. As I felt, which was waking up every day, thinking to myself, there has to be more than this.

[00:27:50] Because I don't like this. I also don't dislike this. I'm just kind of here. And now I'm like you, where I did a lot of work, within me. And a big part of doing that work was also doing a lot of movement to embody it, to move things through my body, to bring my heart in meditation, it was a process.

[00:28:12] And I did read Untamed as well. I love that book. It's a great book. and any of my listeners that have listened to more than one episode have heard me say this probably a hundred times when I started working around death and dying and started learning about it and thinking about it more and realizing that when I am on my deathbed, what is going to be important to me?

[00:28:33] It's not the things that I always used to think it was. And so I'm so much more present now in my life and I'm the same way where life's not perfect, but now I look around and I'm like, I have everything I could ever want. I have a house, got a roof over my head. I always have plenty of food.

[00:28:51] I don't have a fancy car, but I have a car. I have a beautiful family. I have everything that I could ever want. And so I want to be fully present and I want to appreciate it and be here to experience it, not trying to fill this hole within me. With other stuff. And I even found that some of my stuff is healthy, right?

[00:29:14] Quote, unquote, healthy, going to meditation classes, reading a lot of books, taking courses online to learn new things. Like, it was all these things that I thought I needed that was really just taking me further away from just being present in this moment. With the things that I really care about, which is my family.

[00:29:32] And yeah. And so like, I don't know, it was nice to hear your story. 

[00:29:36] Iris: I completely feel you like it's so important to a few times a day, at least. Like I heard like, Bring your head where your feet are, like bring yourself back together and just look at your kids smile and looked at them like, look at a beautiful flower and just be there.

[00:29:55] Smell it feel it, dance. That is what actually fills up that void. And it doesn't always like, sometimes I have the void and thenI go to the cupboard and I take a packet of crisps and I'm like, this is how I'm going to fill my void. I send that. But now I do it very consciously. Like this packet of paprika chips is for me.

[00:30:14] And it also works a little bit, but it's not what really fills it. It's being, like you said, being present and enjoying it and looking at it. And our planet is so beautiful. And we don't realize that this Like, that's another thing that blows my mind. We actually, if you look at it, live.

[00:30:33] on heaven on earth. it's heaven. There is nothing more beautiful than the planet we live in for as far as we know. And we don't realize, and we are disconnecting. And I also believe a lot of the misery that is happening around with people, mental health wars, like it's also this disconnect from our planet because we live so far from it now are from her.

[00:30:56] I don't like calling the planet. It's from her because she gives us life. if you travel a little bit, there's so many different things. It's so beautiful. And that's also part of like opening your eyes to the beauty that's around you. last week we went to France. My parents have a a house there and there are some apple trees.

[00:31:15] And this year the harvest was gigantic. So we were like getting all these apples in the rain and then the way we may choose out of them. And just being outside and doing that and seeing all this, like we had 500 kg, which is like a thousand pounds. Yes. It was like, and you're like, this just falls from the tree.

[00:31:35] We didn't have to do anything for it. And we don't realize that it's all around us. And yeah, so I also think going back to nature, seeing the beauty of you are part of nature. we realize that we're not on top of it. We are part of it. And as when we don't see ourselves as parts of this beautiful cycle, this beautiful circle of life, that's when we start to disconnect from ourselves as well.

[00:32:00] That's what I believe. Yeah, 

[00:32:01] Jill: I know that there's been times in the past when it has been very hard to be present and to really. notice, the beauty around me, right? And it's usually because at that point, I'm so stuck in, old trauma, I'm stuck in old pain. And, my brain is just like cycling through it and cycling through and so I can't be present.

[00:32:26] And I'll even notice that it's happening. And I'll feel really frustrated because I can't bring myself out of it. But that's where healing myself and healing my old traumas has allowed the ability to be present happen more naturally. Where there's still times when I have to remind myself, but now I'll just see, even looking around the room that I'm in now, like the light shining on things, the way it lights up a leaf on a plant, things that I would have never noticed before.

[00:32:57] And I'm really grateful for the fact that I was able. To get here, and it's definitely not easy in the sense that, it requires some deep reflection on ourself, and it does require some learning from other people, right, like people that have come before us that have already done this to kind of help us through, but it is really possible, and I think you're right that, the point that you made at the beginning that a lot would balance itself, like balance itself out in the world if we could heal ourselves within.

[00:33:34] And so it is possible. It's not. As widely talked about though, as I think it should be. And so I'm glad that you're kind of talking to, a demographic of people, the physicians to kind of get the message out. And that's partially why I did this podcast because I wanted to just have a place for conversations to be had around difficult topics, including death and dying, but also living life. And, I appreciate you taking your time to share your story. 

[00:34:04] Iris: Thank you for your time as well. 

[00:34:06] Jill: Is there any last things before we wrap it up? Any last things you want to share? If people want to get in touch with you to find out more about your coaching, how would they do that? What do you want to leave us with?

[00:34:18] Iris: I'm mostly on Facebook, so there's always the possibility of writing me a message. I'm on Instagram as well, but that's not like I have to remind myself to go there. I do have a website which is reclaim Your Sparkle Coach and Just send me a message. That is always the best, the best way to contact me.

[00:34:39] Or on LinkedIn, I'm a little bit everywhere. 

[00:34:41] Jill: Yeah, kind of the same with me, but I'll put links in the show notes to all of 

[00:34:47] Iris: it. It's always nice to first have a conversation and to see if this is something that suits you, because it's not for everybody, but I truly believe that.

[00:34:56] Everybody deserves to feel this joy and we can all feel it if we start, if we are courageous enough to start this journey of self acceptance and self love and wanting to, it's not only for yourself, it's actually a very selfless act to do that because when you feel good. you will actually be kinder with your partner, you will be kinder with your kids, everything around you changes, all the relationships become stronger and more beautiful.

[00:35:26] And that's why taking care of yourself It's actually very selfless because everybody around you enjoys. you more when you are at peace with yourself. I agree. 

[00:35:37] Jill: Beautiful. Well, thank you so much. I appreciate your time.