Ep 31 Kim Riley – Relationship Coaching

Meet Kim Riley

BIO

ABOUT KIM

• I live in Denver, Colorado and I love living here
• I was gone for about 10 years for college, lived overseas for a bit and went to graduate school in Michigan and then came back to Colorado
• I grew up in the outdoors doing a lot of activities that I still do
• Professionally, I have been going in a different direction
• About 30 years ago, I got a master’s degree in public health and health education
• I have worked in those fields throughout the years and still do on a small level
• But, I have always worked in lifestyle management, helping people live healthier lives
• I worked at a clinic for a while and worked with people with diabetes and talked a lot about self-management: what people can do outside of the doctor’s office
• Advising on what they could do for healthier eating and live a more active life
• That has been my focus in public health over the years
• The last few years, I became intrigued with health and life coaching as a new direction to go in
• Over the years working in health education, I have been frustrated not really believing that how I was interacting with clients was very effective
• I have always asked myself, “How does health behavior change?”
• I followed a few mentors in the health and life coaching arenas and decided to get my certification in life coaching and my focus within that broad field is relationship coaching
• What I have found in my training, is more of an answer to what brings about behavior change
• It comes down to the feeling of worthiness. Worthiness of love, belonging, attention and that there are a lot of stories we create in our lives, events that happens to us mean certain things that can take us down and is not very healthy for us
• Life coaching, for me, has helped answer that question of what brings about behavior change
• I am specifically working with mid-life women because I am in that life stage myself, and also because often times, we may have not felt worthy
• Our lives are getting shorter and mid-life is the time of, “if not now, when?”
• There is so much wisdom we could develop, build our worthiness and love the life we live 
• When it comes to relationships or intimate partnerships, I think what I find the common thread is that, we blame
• We do a lot of blaming of our partners
• I understand all of that, and every time there is that blame, I would help women look at the way they act. And I have them believe, with their partners, that they can make a shift for the betterment of the relationship
• When I work with women, we talk a lot about the difference between reacting and responding
• Reacting is kind of a gut level response that triggers us in a negative way
• Response is self-awareness
• When I work with women, there is a big part of my teaching that is around presence and mindfulness
• One really quick and easy practice to become more present is to practice presence even outside of a conversation with your partner
• When you are out walking, take an extra 2 or 3 seconds to look at the things you are passing by
• Just taking those extra couple seconds helps us to be present
• It will help you see things that you just did not see
• There is another exercise that is quick and easy to do. When you notice that you are triggered by something, in that moment, stop and feel what is the sensation in your body
• That gives you a little bit of space where you can choose to response in a more productive and healthy way
• The executive meeting, or the state of the union,  is when you and your partner set a time once a week and you take turns in talking and listening
• The person who is listening should be listening and can’t speak and not judge what the partner is saying
• For the first time, it should be just about 3 minutes. Start on a very small scale
• How you issue your complaint is really important to the extent that a partner can use “I” and “how they feel”
• Executive meetings should be different from date nights
• Date nights should be a positive night – a celebration night
• The purpose of the executive meeting is to air out the concerns, so that all those issues are less likely to leak out into the rest of the week
• Me and my husband used to go on a bike ride
  
• And when we go biking, what we have done for 20 years, is we would bring the wine glasses from our wedding and we would pick a flower and throw a flower into the stream after we say our vows
• Doing that was just another deliberate connection ritual and going back 30 years ago, to the day where we said those vows for the first time
• And we say the exact words we said on our wedding day
• If we can bring back the same feelings and connection at some point during that honeymoon stage, it will make a huge impact
• It doesn’t have to be a very big ritual, it can be really simple just to keeps that connection alive or brings that back

WORDS OF WISDOM

• One book that I love to read is called, The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz
• There are 4 agreements which he talked about
• And the first agreement is, “Don’t take things personally”
• I think about that all the time
• Don’t take what other people say or do to you personally. It is not your fault
• The second is just believing and knowing that people are doing the best they can in life
• When we believe this, that is what allows us to have compassion
• That allows us to truly live in a place and a mental space of acceptance 
• Just know that, everybody out there is doing the best they can, with what they have
• They may not be engaging in a good behavior, but they are doing their best
• My life coach certification is through The Center for Strategic Intervention
• It is run by a couple who have run a lot of work with The Robbins-Madanes Training Center
• It’s based on the approach of Tony Robbins’ work

HOW CAN PEOPLE FIND YOU

• Website: kimrileycoaching.com
• Facebook Group: Reigniting Love In Midlife
• I offer a free 60-minute consultation where I call it on my website, Relationship Clarity Session
• It’s a phone or skype call where we talk about the issues and concerns of the relationship and what are some different tips to start with
• I also offer packages to women who decide after that call to work with me
• It is not a sales call, but a clarity call
• My ultimate vision and mission of my work is to help women live into the last half of their lives with joy, passion, happiness and to recreate that partnership with their partner that they once had and is gone now
• Our lives are not getting shorter and it doesn’t have to continue into boredom, sadness or fear
• If women do decide to work with me, the form that they’ll fill out when they set up their call on my electronic calendar and it’ll ask them what’s their goal and if they will acknowledge this podcast, (e.g. I listened to Tracee’s podcast) I would be willing to offer 2 free coaching sessions

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