In this timely episode, somatic wellness guide Colleen Fletcher, with 29 years of diverse experience, focuses on helping people Holistically to balance themselves. Colleen highlights the importance of respect in client interactions and discusses the evolving wellness landscape.
Discover more on Colleen’s site: www.colleen-fletcher.com
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Colleen Fletcher Podcast.m4a
Transcript
Hi and welcome to the You World Order Showcase podcast. Today we are speaking with Colleen Fletcher. She is a somatic Wellness guide.
Welcome to the show, Colleen. It's so nice to have you with us today.
Hi Jill. Thanks for having me. It's great to be here.
After our both of us had kind of interesting mornings, yes, and we're hoping for the best for today. The rest of the day. So Colleen?
Tell me a little bit about.
What it means to be a somatic Wellness guide?
So for me, Somatics is the body, mind, spirit aspect and.
It also pulls in a lot of other licensing certifications that I have and I am headed into my 29th year of business, so I've done it before. All of the coaching industry got popular. All that type of thing. It's just kind of.
Been what I do.
And that's really for me where I decided I've always just called myself a guide or a friend. You know, any of those things works for me. And. And it's just because, you know, the industry wasn't there. I just was. I've just been doing it. So hands on.
Body work, skin care, dealing with the subconscious, you know, conscious mind as well. So that's really what it means to me. A lot of different.
Different, you know, avenues to help.
The whole of an of one individual.
Do you mostly focus on women, or do you do both?
You know, I'm in a different state now than when I started. When I started my business, it was about 50-50, but now it's 99%. Women almost, almost 100% women now. Yeah. So are you.
Doing coaching sort of full time, I know.
You're like more than.
You're more than a coach. You're more like you become friends. And I think that happens to everybody. You work with somebody and you just see how this connection that it's.
It's really hard to just.
Say no, you're.
Just the client.
Right, right. You know, and that kind of stuff that just comes down to boundaries in my mind of where, where we're going to go. So we can be friends.
And haven't.
And clients first type of thing. You know a lot of them don't get invited over to the.
House and you know the parties and that type of thing, but that's just a different classification of a friend for me.
Yeah, to me it just really is so much of.
Well, this might help to answer your question. When people come in, I still have them. 99% of them still want to lay down on my massage table and so they can.
And it varies so much with clients because some are like you know what?
I just need a little bit of oil on my back. My skin's really dry and itchy, so I'm going to get completely undressed and I'm going to get under the sheet.
OK, fair enough. Whereas you know, they might do a little bit of.
Skin care and little teeny bit of hands on just because that's what they're needing to feel nourished and fulfilled in the moment. And then we go in and.
Do all of the guidance type work? So I asked everyone I found out probably.
About three or four years ago that people found it very intimidating that I asked them so many questions when they first come in for their appointment.
Well, I just thought it was normal that everyone should ask. How you doing? How's your body? What's going on with your thought processes? You know, everything like that. And one person finally admitted that.
I why? Why do you do this? Like, well, because.
I want to take help, take care of you the best possible and if.
I don't know what's going on. Then how can I help you to the fullest amount? So that was an interesting revelation for me that it's.
And now I just tell people in the beginning. Hey, I will always going to ask you lots and lots of different types of questions. I have a very big long intake form and I've had some people say that they don't want to fill it out. And I say that they can't come in.
Unless they do.
Because it is so important for me to know all of that skin care is a great example of that. Because if people, let's say.
Name you have family members coming into town and you're totally freaking out over it. So it's your nerves and all of your anxiety that is causing the skin rash that's going to be a different type of treatment that I give you then. Oh, I got into some plants that gave me an allergic reaction.
So same ultimately same treat you know same type of process we're doing, we're doing skin care.
Totally divergent ways to come about that. So for me that's a really big important aspect.
Of asking so many.
Questions so I can give you that, that whole aspect, that whole well-being for where you're at today.
I think people are used to going into the doctor's office and you fill out that.
It's actually a rather short form and you just kind of like just to call it pencil whipping it. But when you're really trying to find the root of the problem, you have to ask way more questions than that because you're not just like.
Slathering on something to treat the symptom you're trying to figure out what the root cause is so that you can really fix the problem and.
I think people sometimes.
Don't really understand that it takes a lot of questions to get to what is actually causing this problem when it comes to skin care. It could even be something.
They're thinking about.
It can manifest in your skin. It's like.
Well, and wear on your face or body doesn't turn up. That pulls in that whole other part of metaphysics as well, if you.
Chronically have a rash on your arm.
What? Why? Where exactly is that coming from? So those are the things that I really, really get deep and ask about as well. So now I just tell people up front because I didn't realize, you know, how sometimes you just think it's normal and you don't realize what you're doing. So now I just tell everyone I'm always going to ask you.
A lot of questions.
It's very, very.
Very important. I suggest that people write notes down in between this appointment and their upcoming appointment so that they can.
Give me the timeline with it too. So now people whip out their phones and tell me everything. That's awesome. Very, very helpful.
And for them too, because they're going to get a solution versus just a Band-Aid.
I have personally experience with people who.
The chronic problems, and they think that they're just going to go to the doctor and the doctor's magically going to read their mind and tell them what's wrong. It's like, you know, if you give them some data.
You're setting them up to actually be.
Able to give.
You some information back. They can look at the data and they can give you suggestions rather than just saying here.
Take this pill.
Hope it works for you.
And I think people forget, too that.
I'm not just offering them a natural alternative for just a pill type of thing. It's like, well, sometimes this is work.
You know we.
Gotta do some.
We gotta do some digging around in here and see what else is going on so.
It's not. It's not normal that.
You can just.
Take a pill and hope that everything will.
Be better for you without making changes in your life, because whatever you were doing brought you to the point.
That you're at right now.
So you can't really expect to be able to continue doing whatever it is that you're doing, no matter how comfortable you are with it, because it's causing you some problems.
It makes sense to me it. I mean it really, really does. You know, I think a lot of it is still for me anyway, is trying to get the best way to.
The easiest, most understandable way for people to hear that as well in their life also.
So yeah, and it can even be things that are good for you, like, you know, broccoli is supposed to be good for you, but it is actually not good for everyone. There are people that.
Rockley doesn't agree with their system. So.
They shouldn't eat broccoli.
I agree completely, yes. And how are you going to find out about that if you don't ask questions?
Right. So you work with?
Yeah, yeah.
Reiki and what other? What other modalities are you using?
To help people.
So I am a massage therapist. My main focus with massage is posture, rebalancing and the somatic aspect. The body work, not just like a Swedish massage.
So the body work with that.
And then I'm an aesthetician. I'm a hypnotist. I'm a metaphysician. I'm a Reiki master. I think I got them all natural, intuitive as well, I.
I didn't know as a kid that most people were not the way I was.
At all. So you know you.
I just assumed everyone else knew what I knew and could do what I did and took me a long time to find out that.
That's not true.
So it's interesting how everybody is gifted slightly differently and I think it's just becoming really in the last few years apparent to people that, hey, I am different and it's OK and I can help people because not everybody's like me, I've got some gifts that I am here to like.
Share with everybody else.
Right.
That's what really excites me about the way the world is going right now.
I think so too. I have noticed such.
Right.
A difference in the industry.
And I mean it is.
I really I almost don't have words for how different it is.
Well, I mean, what I can say is I didn't have a computer. This would have never happened easily at all.
I still have old notes.
From when I got my first computer of newsletters I sent out, and before that I remember going to photocopy them and folding them and putting them in an envelope and mailing them out.
I remember when I.
First, the first business I ever started was a cleaning business and I went door to door.
And passed out Flyers and talk to people. And I built a pretty good business.
Just doing that but.
There was no computer. I got yelled at for putting Flyers in people's mailboxes. Apparently they belong to the post office, not us.
Even though we buy them.
Right, right.
So back in the 80s.
Yeah, yeah, it is. So you know, with that perspective, it is those are the things I could talk about the.
Most with the changes, the rest of it it's like oh.
Oh, that's it's.
It's huge, you know, that's the other thing I forgot to mention too is I've done I'm. I'm a meditation instructor, and the meditations I've done.
Four. Ohh my goodness. I'm probably going on 51 years now. Something like that and.
People ask how I can do a meditation in silence like, well, because when I started in the early 70s, there was nothing like any of this stuff. So you did just sit and do it just.
Can you just close your eyes and turn your brain off and do this right? Right. But I grew up doing that, so.
So it it's interesting and that's another one of the things that I can say that I really have noticed a shift with it. Now it has to have all of these.
Things you have to have a candle and you.
Know all the stuff.
And I'm like, no, you're always with yourself, no matter what you have surrounding you. So just close your eyes and sit and breathe for.
A couple of minutes.
Yeah. Start with two or three if you're just starting out because it's a really long time.
Yeah. Yeah, it is so.
When you practice for a while, 20 minutes goes by and you're.
Like what? It's.
Only 20 minutes? No way.
No way.
Yeah, yeah, now we.
Have these timers to set and you can hear these gongs going off. I'm like.
All right.
So yeah, interesting stuff, isn't it? How everything has shifted and changed.
It has and I think it's it. It was going in a in.
A bad direction.
For a while.
But I think it really has shifted.
A lot.
And as people become more aware, I think it's even more self aware that you know you can be responsible for yourself. You can.
That people respect certain qualities about you.
Boundaries are starting to be talked about in a way that they were never talked about before. We had manners before.
When I was young, we had manners. Everybody knew what manners were. But then we went for, like, probably 20 years, maybe even longer, 30 or 40.
Where people were.
Confused about what the manners were supposed to be?
So we had no.
Way of really.
Understanding how society expected us to interact with one another, you know, was, you know, you open the door for girls. Well, then the girls got all offended and.
And so guys didn't know what to do. And so girls were opening doors for guys and then and everybody just got confused about what was.
What is the norm and then boundaries came along and boundaries are really an interesting phenomenon.
They help.
Us interact with other people. It's really all that they're about that we decide what we're willing to tolerate, what we like and.
Right.
But we're comfortable with.
What we're comfortable with and we.
Learn how to express that to other people and we learn how to.
Find out from them what is comfortable for them also and when we respect each other's boundaries, it really helps.
The flow of communication, the lack of judgment because.
Who am I to judge somebody else's boundaries?
I only have to worry about my own.
Right.
And it just makes life so much easier.
I wouldn't be.
I like the boundaries. I do and I think a lot of times people still have that perception that what boundary is this?
Hard line it's like.
No, no, I mean with some things. Yeah. And that's acceptable as well. But beyond that, I just think that they.
They allow communications and verbal communications and physical communications. All these different things, so I agree. I like the boundaries. I like the fact that it has shifted beyond just.
Set rules or manners.
I do too and.
It allows freedom of really introspect.
Action because it requires introspection on an individual's part to decide what, what do I want?
What are my?
Core values.
And what don't I want as well, which is another big part of it, I.
Think and it allows us to.
To make better choices in the people that we're going to interact with and we can choose to not interact with them if they're.
Out of alignment and it doesn't have to be a rubber thing, but sometimes you just need to move them to the outer boundaries.
Outside of your circle and you know over here and.
I just.
You don't have to have any judgment about whether you like them or not. They're just not fitting in with.
The way that you're trying to hold space in your life, in your reality that you've created.
Right.
And you can still respect them over there.
Yes, I think it's great as well for working with ideal clients. You know for work type of things. These are the kind of people that I really, really resonate with. I like that. So for me, it's not exactly the same thing, but kind of almost the same thing.
I'm just doing it in a professional setting of what I'll tolerate. Like for me, one of the biggest things you respect me and my time.
I don't like working with people that are constantly 1520 minutes late.
Not going to work for me so.
Yeah, that's boundary. Yeah and.
You know, people need to have integrity. They need to show up when they say they're going to show up and.
If they don't, well.
You don't respect me very much.
So don't feel the need to respect you.
Either over there.
My boundary is going to go here and that's not going to work for.
Me for sure so.
Yeah, those are the things I've really noticed was shifting with work most of.
Do you do?
Your work online are offline in person.
Both. Yeah, I like today. I'm actually. I'm at my office. I have two clients this evening. So I was here instead of my Home Office. I am doing more with the online and you know, like because I have.
Products I sell organic skin care and body care and makeup and things that you would find in a in a meditation.
Space. So I have that so that that's still probably about 5050 of in person and online. So the online space is where I obviously you know it's an easier well. It's a harder space to grow in.
But the one that once you get there can really help to be very fulfilling and that's where I'm headed.
With things too.
But I still love my hands on.
Well, yeah, because.
It's like human connection. I think we've been craving that for so long and now we're coming full circle to like.
Let's interact one-on-one with people and have meaningful conversations and.
Make the world a better place.
Absolutely. So I you know, I'm at the stage now too, where I physically cannot do that many clients I used to do, you know, 5A day, 6-7 days a week and well that just hurts anymore.
So I really for the preservation of my own body, I don't do as many of the physical hands on type of stuff as well. I can balance it out if a lot of it is energy work.
Those are not quite as the physically demanding of my hands and shoulders and arms so.
But I think I have pretty good balance with it.
So she's a big.
A big deal to be a massage therapist. It takes.
A lot out of you it.
Just touching people for long periods of time, you absorb their energy.
Got to have good boundaries for that stuff.
They're there for a reason, yeah.
I'm sure you do. So the coaching part you do online as well as offline.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
And do you do?
Just do one-on-one or.
Do you do group?
Group coaching at all.
With that right now, it is definitely still one-on-one, whether it's online or in person.
I will probably start doing more of that.
And I have a membership program and that's where a lot of things are going to start to filter through into that, you know, like right now I have Reiki sessions up there. I can, you know, it's my.
My big time, more Evergreen type of.
Aspect that I have.
So yeah, yes is probably the answer of it's going to go more online in that direction. A lot of trainings.
Like you're training people to be Reiki.
Reiki in itself is one that I do one-on-one. I can do group sessions but I want or group trainings but I want everyone to have the same theme. I work very differently with how I train for the ranking.
And I call it Reiki in the real world.
And it's something that.
I want to go. I want to help train you. So it's very specific to your goals. So let's just take.
A real estate agent, right? I want to be able to train them. Yes, in Reiki one and two, absolutely.
And how to work with that for themselves and how to work with others? All the normal things you think?
Of with that.
And then I also want that to know what their process is for buying and selling homes. So let's say that you have a whole checklist of things that you do when you're selling.
Home with a buyer. I want you to know exactly what stage in that list and how to utilize rate.
For each one of those as well, I had someone that wanted to really immerse herself in the Reiki training with nature, so she sent me the coordinates on a map to the mountains in Oregon and off I went.
And I found the coordinates on a map and we did Reiki outside and that was her training because that's really what she wanted. So to so deeply connect with the earth, we did a lot with the waterways as well of the.
World I had someone else that wanted. She makes she like, does food prep and she wanted every single stage of buying the food, the food coming into her space, the food preparation, every single thing to be infused with Reiki.
So we went through that whole process.
So that's the.
Biggest difference with how I do my Rikki trainings is they are very, very individual.
With the rest of the trainings as well.
If that makes any sense, I just to me.
It makes total sense.
Yeah, I just it's the one thing that I thought, oh, I am going to niche down so ******** in this one and man is it ever so much more fulfilling, so much more fulfilling and very.
I started seeing a lot of other people that were getting training and they were still coming to me of calling. Now what do I do?
Like, oh, I'm really sorry you didn't get the full training. They had no idea why their hands were feeling funky because no one talked about it. No one talked about well.
I really don't.
Know if I feel this at all.
How do I tell if I feel this and I'm like, OK, so I was retraining people anyway.
So that's really what started it is like this is not how I want to see people learn something like Reiki. I want them to get it for what works in their life.
I'd imagine there's.
Like the basics, because you have to.
Know you know.
How it functions before you can like apply it so there's.
Right, right.
There's like the basics. And then there's.
The specialized applied section.
Yep, and that's what I do with it. You really get a lot of stuff crammed in, in the beginning and then we like slow down, like, OK, I need to know exactly what your process is with it. You know, like the person with the food.
I have been to her busy.
And we went through step by step. OK, well, this table is going to be used for this use. Riki do this at this time and boom, boom. So.
It's cool. It's really a fun.
Way to do it.
It sounds like it.
Yeah. Yeah, it is.
Really interesting so.
You offer a calming meditation on your website. Tell people about that a little bit.
I want.
Whether you have been meditating for 50 years like I have, or whether you have no idea what you're doing with it at all, I want something that you can at least listen to and.
Take a breath of fresh air.
Just sit for a few minutes and just chill.
Doesn't matter what level you're at all with it, so that is that meditation.
I you know, I can say that it's simple but is any easy meditation simple? You know you can still, you can still get great power and.
Sell that self Wellness with it. I prefer to use the term self Wellness instead of self-care because I like the whole big part of it, not just oh, I'm just going to do this once and that's where I like this meditation that it's.
Calming you can take a nap.
Afterwards, just chill out.
The simplicity of something that is so empowering.
So that's this meditation for sure, and I'd love for everyone just to check it out. Just take a few minutes. Just a few minutes every day for you, because that circles in my mind right back to what's your version of beauty? Well, maybe it is just a nap.
For 5 minutes, you know, maybe that's what you need.
Yeah. And that's giving yourself permission to.
Take a break.
Absolutely yes. And maybe setting some new boundaries for yourself too. With it of, you know, I need this now. We're going to go here. I need this for me and not being mean about it, just realizing it's OK to do that. Which again for me falls into that.
That self Wellness.
So how would people know if they would be a good fit for you? If what would they be thinking about if they wanted?
What are your clients thinking about before they come to you?
Because I have a lot with the skin hair and I got it. Yeah, we'll revisit it. How's that? Because I have the natural skin care and things like that.
Getting sense?
Perfect.
They don't have to lean.
Toward wanting natural skin care. But it makes it so much easier.
Because so often you know if all they want is the quick fix and that type of thing, that's not going to resonate quite as much with me.
You know, I can say that I work with women that are 35 to 50 years old. I can do that one as well.
I personally really go more toward that. We resonate together, they care about nature. They care about that. The whole aspect of life and Wellness and inner beauty for themselves. So those are the biggest things with it.
I do resonate quite a bit with creative people, so if you're super analytical, I can do it.
Because I'm married to someone that is like that. So I can. But normally it's the people that are.
Just creatives, creative people, creative people work really well.
With me, so it's fun.
That's awesome. And how can they get in touch with you?
Website, social media and my website iscolleen-fletcher.com social media is most of them. They're either going to be calling D Fletcher or Colleen Fletcher 3.
Because there were, what, 3 Colleen Fletchers before me that got the Gmail account.
Right. Isn't that so interesting? How, how you have discovered how many people there?
Are with your same name.
Yep, Yep.
I ran into quite a few Jill Harts and when I was growing up, I never knew another Jill.
I didn't start meeting people named Jill until I was in my 50s.
Which was? That was another thing. Like I had gone my whole life until I turned 50, not knowing another Jill.
In the world.
Yeah, that's interesting. Because Jill to me is far more common than Colleen. And like I grew up on the West Coast of the US, so there's not as many Colleens I know on the East Coast that's different, but I never did and now I do know someone that has my exact name.
She reached out to me years ago and we've become friends. And then she got married and doesn't have it anymore. So I told her I can't be.
Friends with her.
Which isn't true at.
All but I've become friends with some.
Other Jill harts.
Also, yeah, yeah, it's interesting.
So that is the those are the best ways. I am fairly active on social media, probably more so Instagram and Facebook trying to do more with TikTok and that kind of thing. YouTube is a great way to see a lot of my meditations I have.
A very regular monthly meditation. It's called Yumi and the trees.
And that one I have a group for it on Facebook that, you know, I just, I love the trees as well. So I love having pictures of trees and then the meditations themselves are put up on YouTube and.
Yeah. And then the best, honestly is because there's so much content just on my website as well.
So that's it. Yeah.
Perfect. So what's the one thing you?
Want to leave the audience with today?
Smile because you can change your world and you can change our world through a smile.
Absolutely. I love that. Believe it with that.
Thanks Colleen for joining me.
Thank you so much.