I am a Registered Nurse and coach. I coach nurse leaders including managers, executives, academics, administrators, nurse practitioners to recover from workplace fatigue and overwhelm by building compassionate resilience to stress.

After spending over 40 years working in a number of clinical, administrative and academic roles, I know what it takes to work in complex work environments. I understand what it is like to feel isolated in your role working in a hierarchal system, suffer from insomnia worrying about lack of staff to provide care to patients and families, feeling sick and tired of feeling tired.

If you feel overwhelmed, exhausted, frustrated, or angry, I am committed to working with you. Your feelings and emotions may be responses to your work environments. Unfortunately, your home life can also be affected by these responses. I understand because I have worked in such environments and have experienced these emotions.

And, I also have experienced how to find the spark and joy in my work again.

Offering experiential transformational processes, I work with my clients through deep inquiry and explore how to develop a healthy, sustainable and resilient lifestyle despite the chaotic work environments in which they work. My coaching services are through 1:1 coaching, online group work and virtual retreats.

My Story

I began my professional career as a diploma-prepared registered nurse and have since pursued a variety of academic credentials in nursing and coaching. With experience practicing in five provinces across Canada I’ve always been dedicated to my profession. I am as passionate about patient and family care as the night I graduated with my Registered Nurse Diploma, in my white uniform and cap with my black band!

My coaching services draw from my studies that have included solution-focused, depth psychology, narrative, and health coaching programs. This education has strengthened what has always been a fundamental principle in my nursing practice – that is to help persons with the issue that is most bothersome to them, we must come to understand the person and their story.

My personal journey hasn’t always been easy.

While I’ve helped many patients and families through their experiences of pain, grief and loss, I’ve also witnessed suffering in the colleagues around me. While I believe that nursing is sacred, nursing roles may be difficult. Clinical work is difficult. It often takes its toll on a person professionally and personally. In fact, I’ve experienced this impact myself – and I know I’m far from the only one. The problem is, sometimes we’re not even aware of the fact that we’re experiencing distress in our work…that is, until we reach our tipping point and say, “That’s it…I’m done!” After a long shift, have you ever wanted to (or actually did!) kiss the dirty elevator door taking you to your locker room in the bowels of the building? Have you thought about changing your name after a shift because if you hear it one more time, you may scream?

In recent years, I have spent a lot of time taking a deep look at what is really happening in today’s clinical environments. And I chose to do something about it. This choice began with a commitment to first care for myself, so that I could then care for others. I now know that you can’t do the latter without the former. It is not a perfect situation for me either – life happens to us all; however, change does begin with awareness and knowing where to turn to for support and validation.

Why I Started Coaching

I believe that those who provide nursing and health care services are in greater need of coping strategies than ever before. Coaching is an art and science that is grounded in a relationship of trust. My coaching practice is the result of my personal and professional experiences. I’ve had a first-hand view of clinical and other health-related work settings and the very evident increase in complexities in these environments. I’ve conducted research on the impact of work environments on those who provide nursing services.  As a result of these research efforts, I have come to believe that we must build our own capacity and resiliency to face the challenges we meet and to do the kind of work we initially started out to do!

And that’s why I started coaching: to help others survive and thrive in today’s health care workplaces.