Kevin Stafford 0:00
Hello, everyone, and welcome to another fine, fine, fine, I would dare say delightful episode of the conversations with coaches podcast. I’m your host, Kevin. And you can probably tell from the tone of my voice, which it’s fairly common, but it’s for good reason. I am once again delighted to be able to make the acquaintance of coach Lisa Collins. Let me give you a little tidbit about her before we start the conversation. Lisa is an author, Assistant Professor play right, which I’m going to want to talk about, but we have other we have bigger fish to fry. But I’m really fascinated by that. And to trauma healing leader, her TEDx talk, chronicles the healing modalities that resulted for herself and others as a direct result of her research. There’s a bunch more to say, but let’s just start the conversation. Lisa, thanks for being here. Thanks for Thanks for coming on the podcast. Thanks for meeting me. Thanks for being pretty awesome. I’m I’ve known you for less than 10 minutes, I feel pretty confident saying that.
Lisa Yvetta Collins 0:49
Thank you to Kevin for I’m very honored to be here and to be able to meet you and delight in the joy that we’re going to share together.
Kevin Stafford 0:57
I love it. I love it. Well, let’s, let’s get into it and go back now all the way to the beginning because that would be ridiculous. We don’t have that kind of time. But let’s go back to your your superhero origin story. So so to speak, as a coach, how did you discover realize who told you who had the right words of the right moment that helped to crystallize this realization? This notion is like, hey, coaching is coaching is my best expression of the impact I want to have in the world. It’s the way in which I want to move through the world create an experience joy and delight. How did that begin for you?
Lisa Yvetta Collins 1:27
Yes, great question. It emerged by a need. And I and I kind of think that the need was not intentional on my part, I started studying with the Eastern Mennonite University star star is strategies for trauma awareness and resilience. And star was created in 2011, after, after what happened as a peace building of how are we going to heal, I went and took star and fell into it deeply, and utilized it as a frame for myself. And I tried to bring it to organizations. And a fast forward. I utilizing star and IB I started to research my own lived experiences here in the Pacific Northwest. And that is what emerged as this feeling framework. And star was on foundational foundational to that. But in addition to star I started taking conscious greed on life coaching, to help me deal with the trauma I experienced in organizations. And I took to it like a fish to water. And then my coach asked me would you like to be a life coach with for conscious freedom. So I integrated star and conscious freedom into a coaching model. And that’s, that’s what happened
Kevin Stafford 2:54
is there’s two words there that just I’m my brain and my heart immediately latched on to one emerge, I love I love that word, that concept. And it’s so much it’s so I think it’s so like at are very like near the heart of not just the coaching experience, but just like the human development experience, is there’s just all of these forces and events and things that happen or don’t happen, words said or left unsaid and events and just all this stuff that kind of comes together. And as you you sort of who you are and who you will become emerges out of all of that. I feel like that’s such a great word. Because there’s so there’s, I think it captures both the the powers that work underneath the surface that you don’t have any direct control over. It’s just these natural processes that happen and an embrace of like, acknowledgement and some intention with that emerging, you know, does that make sense? Or am I just am I getting flowery?
Lisa Yvetta Collins 3:48
Totally makes sense. Because what happened for me is like, my story is the coaching and zeros on a theory or generality that I’m talking to you about. I’m talking about what actually happened for me, when I went to star the healing that I experienced when I went to conscious freedom life coaching, how I unpack the trauma of the past, which I didn’t even know I was throwing it in the back on the station wagon. And when the station wagon stopped, all of that garbage came forward. And then also the integration of interpersonal neurobiology, all of those things wove into this healing framework that I experienced, and that I became a freer human being because of it. And that’s what I’m sharing with people.
Kevin Stafford 4:33
I love that there’s also that it’s the other word that you mentioned on top of America was that foundation as you were talking about the journey, and I love I love what I mean, I love this. I love having coaches talk about how they became a coach because obviously I have this podcast, I’ve talked to hundreds of coaches. I want to talk to hundreds if not 1000s more because I love the story of someone moving through their life and they’re just there. Whether they know it or not at the time, they’re grabbing these pieces, and they may not know as they’re grabbing them what What’s going to emerge what’s going to be built, but there’s always this moment where a coach realizes that I could, I’ve got this and I’ve got that and I’m you’re mining your own experiences. And you’re also understanding how those experiences sort of run parallel to or counter to, or alongside other people’s experiences. And you’re like, oh, this helped me and I understand how and these things together to help to make me the person that I am. And I can kind of see now how that could, with some with some guidance, help others, and then that’s the the lightbulb moment, the flash, the dawning moment, and it’s like, Okay, now, I want to serve, I want to give back, I want to help.
Lisa Yvetta Collins 5:36
Yeah, I want to help you not struggle, like I struggle. And in my TEDx talk, I talk about healing from racial trauma. And what occurred for me there is that I didn’t, there’s so much I didn’t know. And I thought when people talk a lot about racial trauma, but they don’t talk about trauma. And when I went to this life coach, I went with an intention that she’s going to help me heal my racial trauma. And that’s not what happened. What happened is she helped me deal with the Foundation. She helped me deal with the trauma. And so after doing that, then I can see if it was about race or not. Is it about being a woman or not? Is it about being a single mom or not? I had to go back and get that foundation real clear work in the shadow to see what was real. And now I’m going to date myself. And what is Memorex? Like? What, what is the real deal here?
Kevin Stafford 6:32
I’m gonna date myself by laughing at that, because yes, I remember that commercial well. Oh, that’s such a great the way the way you describe it, it’s so empowering and illuminating. And then I’m also thinking about those moments before you’ve really gone all the way down there. And it’s like, I could feel like the the memory of the fear before I committed to that work, because it’s when you when you when you bleed out like that, it’s like, we’re gonna go past all the other layers of trauma. Because we know we need to start somewhere deeper, if we’re going to ever have a chance of understanding what else is happening, because all this stuff is clearly happening. And it’s weighing on you, you could feel the gravity of it pulling you down or back. But you know, you have to go deeper. And that’s just, that’s both. That’s both exciting and terrifying to contemplate.
Lisa Yvetta Collins 7:18
It is scary. For the first time that I had a coaching session, and we talked about those the shadow, like, why would you think that you weren’t worthy? Or why would you think that you’re powerless, and I started to the list are pouring out of me. I remember my because you know, trauma happens in the body. My body was like blinds down. Time to go to bed. And time to I don’t want to talk about it. I just came home and went to bed, and my compassion for my fellow humans who are out there thinking there’s something wrong with them, because they’re pulling the blinds down. It’s like, how do we bring the light to all of our collective experiences. It’s just like, it’s all of our work to help one another, we only have one job to love one another. That’s it.
Kevin Stafford 8:08
Honestly, well put, well put well said. And the lesson well learned, like I keep I keep going around and like thinking there’s more to it and kind of going around and building constructs and frameworks. And they all lead me back to that. And I’m sure I’ll go on other journeys. It’s not that those journeys are wrong or bad. But I always find myself coming back to that one, one responsibility that we have as human beings being the beginning and the end of everything that we do and the why of everything that we do.
Lisa Yvetta Collins 8:34
Absolutely, absolutely. So I was like, I was surprised when a framework came out a healing framework came out of my work, a racial healing framework. And when people think racial healing framework, or they think well, that’s for people of color, no, it’s for all of us. It’s for all of us. How do we, we start to engage each other, heal from the past and move into the present.
Kevin Stafford 9:01
It’s something I’ll tread carefully here, because it’s something I’ve thought a lot about in the context of violence, and how violence is not just perpetrated from one to another. And violence is something that’s perpetrated on both the committer of the Act and the receiver of the act. And I feel like there are a lot of the a lot of the different kinds of violence that we inflict on each other. And I think, honestly, I don’t think it can be said often enough, that healing racial trauma is it’s not just about who is the giver and who’s the receiver. We all have healing to do there. A lot of it. And the more we shine a light on that fact, the more we can get down to business, you know what I mean?
Lisa Yvetta Collins 9:44
Absolutely, I mean, the hoop is always bigger than we think it is. This is huge tube, and I said, so we’re gonna start with a hoop it’s it’s dignity, treating someone like a human being. That’s the hoop. We want to start with first. We all want to ground there. And then We want to look at what are the past traumas that we’re carrying from our generations from our ancestors, what is it that is coming forward that we can let go of, we can just let go of it right now. And then we can just together as the beloved community, as Dr. King says, Walk forward.
Kevin Stafford 10:18
And I love, I love considering it that way, because it is, in order to properly release something, you really do have to get your hands on it, you know, and right now it’s it’s floating in that dark room with the blinds closed, pushed to the back of the station wagon, weighing it down, grinding the muffler into the pavement, and all that all those analogies that really kind of describe how it feels. And you have to, you know, and it takes help, you know, doing it by yourself. It’s a gargantuan effort. And really, it’s like, there, there are people like yourself who are not only want to help but know how to help to bring things forward, you know, put your hands on them, bring them forward, grasp them so that they can be released. And I think we we don’t realize we think it’s either one or the other, you know, like either taking hold or letting go. It’s like, that’s just those are two steps on the journey.
Lisa Yvetta Collins 11:02
Absolutely. And so much of the time, we want to have this be in the left part of our brain, we want to analyze it, we want to pick it apart. But really, it’s in our heart, and between our head and our heart and our gut, we need to align all of those energies together to be able to walk and not like one person in front of the other person, but I want to walk beside you, I want to be with you. I want to I want to be in community with you. And that is where the work really needs to go for our community well being in our own personal well being.
Kevin Stafford 11:35
I couldn’t agree more. And I’m looking at the Zoom clock, I could stay in this conversation for hours. But but not only that, not only because selfishly I love trafficking, and really moving back and forth with these kind of things. I think it’s so important. But I want to give you a chance to talk a little bit about like your frameworks, your modalities the way that you’re working with people today. So who primarily and I’m sure the answer this question will lead us naturally back into all the all the important stuff we’re talking about. It’s kind of why I love doing these kinds of interviews. Who do you coach? And how do you coach them? The WHO being fairly obvious, but sometimes it’s like, do you have particular particular ages or industries or demographics or you know, people at certain stages in their journey that you primarily focus on your with your coaching and your and your your frameworks? And how being again, what are those frameworks? Are you primarily a one to one coach in your work? Do you do lots of group coaching or, or masterminds or constructs like that, or, you know, keynote speeches, obviously, you’ve done a TEDx talk. So that certainly counts there. I imagine that you’re an author. In fact, I believe that you are so you know, writing books, creating courses, all of the above. So yeah, the who and the how, what is that for you these days?
Lisa Yvetta Collins 12:46
Yeah, that’s a great question. The WHO IS WHO comes? Who can hear for those that can hear and knows that are eager to, they’re curious to want to change. Also, I work with organizations. So I work on organizational practices to change the practices, they may want to say, Well, we really want belonging. Okay. And so how do we do that? So I’ve worked with the National Park Service. Here in Oregon, I’ve worked with school districts. And then I also worked with individuals and groups, and a group of people who may be poor, for example, I’ll be working with Virginia Garcia health clinic. So I’ll be working with them coming up and in a couple of months. And as a group, they want to talk about wellness educators want to talk about, I always want to talk about wellness with them. And that’s work that I do at a collective level. How I always center it, and trauma, trauma, awareness and resilience, how do we break off of the cycles, and create this, this breaking free, which is community support. And I really believe in that. What I dream of is every community having a place where they can get the support, when they can break free of the cycles, get the support from the community, body and brain regulation, acknowledge what is happening, and then reconnect with themselves. We do this individually and collectively. And that’s the model that I use, regardless of what we’re talking about. Breaking off the cycles, recognizing the cycles in our body, the implicit and explicit memories that we experience, knowing that sometimes the body remembers the Body Keeps the Score, and that when that happens to be curious. Oh, what was that? And then I use also something that I call a thinking map, which comes from conscious freedom. What happened? How do I feel what’s a deep belief about myself? What is in the shadow? That is showing itself as true? That’s not true for me as adult Lisa may have been true for me as five year old Lisa, but not true today. And I want to shine a light on that it’s not serving me anymore. And I’m gonna release it.
Kevin Stafford 15:05
I love the the words that popped it like went across the back of my eyeballs as you were talking was rigorous questions. Just being like just rigorous meaning like continually asking an evolving these questions holding that space holding that awareness and letting and grappling with or like just kind of handling or dealing with or being present for what comes what comes up what comes out what passes through what moves forward and how I love the way that you’ve you frame and quite frankly, the way that you approach this because it’s it is a kind of change that happens on both the individual and the organizational level, the individual and the community level. It’s, it’s helpful to sometimes compartmentalize them as you’re talking about them. But while you’re talking about them, and I love the way that you speak to them, because you understand inherently implicitly that those are one in the same, you only use the separate terms in order to speak about them with more eloquence with more light, more illumination. But there is no community without the individual there is no individual without the community. And healing begins with both and I say both. And even even as I’m acknowledging they are one in the same. And I feel like that acknowledgement being foundational to your approach, I think that allows you to really access and build the resilience that you’re that you were speaking to
Lisa Yvetta Collins 16:23
a man that resilience is everything. It is everything. And people feel lost and hopeless. And especially after event. During the pandemic, I could see this like you could set a spark in the eye is gone. And when I’m talking about my own healing, and how I was able to move from this place where, you know, the doctor told me you have to take off from work. And I said, Well, how about a couple of weeks? And she said how about Wednesday? That I was unable to self rescue? I was like, Whoa, what is going on that I’m unable to self rescue? And then the illumination and the gifts were coming to me as I was seeking, like, what is it? Oh, I’m on the cycle, oh, I need to break free? Or where’s my community? How am I going to reconnect with myself.
Kevin Stafford 17:11
And even though this is a word that I obviously carry some baggage for over the past few years, but that kind of illumination, that kind of self care and awakening and awareness is contagious. It is contagious A wants to spread in a positive fashion. I know it’s like I almost like part of me, like cringes a little bit inside using that terminology because of what we’ve all been going through for the last few years. But it is it has always been true remains true and will continue to be true. This kind of self awareness of development, community building joy, trauma, healing, resilience, this is contagious in all the right ways. You just have to get yourself out there and share it. And I love that you are something I turned my often I often find myself using for coaches is bridge builder. You’re just a committed bridge builder to just being like, you know what, you just need ways to connect. And that’s where the resiliency will come there won’t just be one bridge across these troubled waters that everybody has to cross. It’s rickety, and it’s falling apart. Yeah, I’m reaching for an analogy here. But this is what the way my brain works is like let’s build more bridges between more of us for greater resiliency. And let’s, let’s talk across those bridges, let’s cheer each other across those bridges. Let’s find new ones together and grow our community and the resiliency grows with it, the connection grows with it, the awareness grows with it as you grow in that communal way. That organizational way your own awareness of self grows with it in ways that you can’t quite you don’t really see coming until they start happening. And again, I go back to what that word used the beginning. All of a sudden new things are emerging from within you. new modalities, new frameworks, new commitments, new awarenesses are emerging from that community work and it’s this contagious virtuous cycle and I get I get very like almost romantic about it because of like when you see it happen when you watch it when you experience it it’s very it’s just heartwarming only begins describe the way it feels in my chest.
Lisa Yvetta Collins 19:00
Yeah, yeah, it’s magical. Yeah, yeah,
Kevin Stafford 19:03
I use that word sometimes do magical delightful. The same words come up with I’m like, I don’t know if I have a better one. I’ll use other ones. But I’ll keep coming back to the ones that work the best.
Lisa Yvetta Collins 19:12
Oh, absolutely. And I That’s my hope for our world, you know that we are that we’re doing better. And and that’s what I I’m charged to do is to bring it bring the light.
Kevin Stafford 19:24
You can be an optimist and a realist at the same time. It is it’s not only possible, it’s actually a very strong human human condition. I believe I believe that all the way down to my toes.
Lisa Yvetta Collins 19:34
I love that I love that meat to me.
Kevin Stafford 19:38
Well shoot. Yeah, I like I said, I feel like I could talk to you for days. Um, I joked a little bit before I hit record that like if the conversations are good, I just invite people back on so we can preserve the short form of the podcast but still keep exploring is no question. There’s no doubt in my mind that I’ll be talking to you again for this podcast and probably for other reasons. I’m delighted that you do what you do in the world that you are who you are you really He I was already having a pretty good day and you’ve you’ve you’ve added to the the light in my day, the illumination, and it helps that we’re both living. We’re both in the same area of the country. It helps when it’s sunny and 70 degrees outside, we’re finally moving out of Portland winter and into that into that Portland spring and summer.
Lisa Yvetta Collins 20:15
Summer and spring I sometimes I forget when or even happened. Yep.
Kevin Stafford 20:20
It’s just a dis it’s already a distant memory. Even though it was just a few days ago, it was, you know, 45 degrees and raining. That’s fine.
Lisa Yvetta Collins 20:27
That’s totally fine. I’m delighted. We’re in the same area. I look forward to connecting again.
Kevin Stafford 20:33
Yeah, definitely. And before I let you go, it’s another little two parter, I like to ask because sometimes the answers are a little bit different. But where can people learn more about you, what you’re doing, who you are, what your work is about? And also, where can people best connect with you if you have a preferred place you’d like to send people to start a conversation, you know, if you’d like to have people like book meetings to have chemistry calls if you have particular social media platforms that you’re really active in the DMS on? So yeah, how can people find out more about you and connect with you if they want to start a relationship?
Lisa Yvetta Collins 21:00
Oh, great. You can connect with me at Lisa y collins.com. That’s my, that’s my website. That’s my website. From now. We’ll be doing it soon. I’m on LinkedIn, I’m active on LinkedIn, I’m active on Instagram, you can see when I’m in to what I’m advocating, advocating for Alaska, I’m doing different things in nature. You can you can find me there. But those are two good places to find me. And to see what I’m up to.
Kevin Stafford 21:28
Excellent. Yeah, LinkedIn, the least toxic of all the social media platforms, at least for now. That’s a low bar to clear. I know. But just for today, just for today. Ah, Lisa, one more time. Thank you for sharing a little bit of your day with me, thank you for doing the work that you do and being who you are. I’m already better for knowing you. And I’ve known you for 30 minutes. So thank you, appreciative
Lisa Yvetta Collins 21:52
thank you so much, given an honor.
Kevin Stafford 21:55
And to the audience. You know what to do links to everything we talked about, like how to find out more about Lisa in the show notes. Do yourself a favor and at least find out more and you know what, reach out and then come back here again because we’ll have Lisa on again. In the future. We’ll have other people maybe not quite as lovely as Lisa but you know, quite frankly, probably probably read at the same level because you know who we’d like to talk to here and we will get a chance to talk to you again very soon.
