ABOUT KIM
I WASN’T broken, I WAS BURNT OUT
The worst advice I ever got was: “Success is a little like wresting a gorilla. You don’t quit when you’re tired. You quit when the gorilla is tired.”
I pushpinned that little piece of paper into the corkboards of at least seven different jobs over fifteen years before I finally realized it made no sense for my life.
Because if you plant that seed in the head of a twenty-two-year-old athlete entering the real world with a taste for challenge, a problematically high pain tolerance, and unusually large quads (literal, metaphorical) - say goodbye to balance.
Say hello to years of No Pain, No Gain; If It Hurts, it Works; of Don’t Believe a Word Your Body Tells You - until you’re crawling across the finish line of yet another job you thought you loved, a lump of apathy, exhaustion, and cognitive mush.
Say hello to burnout.
MY MOTTO IS AND ALWAYS WILL BE
“ACCEPT CHANGE WHEN IT happens.
LIGHT FIRES when it NEEDS TO.”
Who I am Behind the Screen
fACT 01
Powerlifter and recovering rower
Fact 02
Queer twin mom with experience in neurodiverse parenting
Fact 03
Health equity + racial justice data leader
Fact 04
I drink… a LOT of tea.
I’m writing vulnerable things about myself on the internet because it didn’t have to be that hard for me - and it doesn’t have to be that hard for you, either.
Burnout wasn’t the problem - burnout was just information.
It was many flashing warning signs that I ignored for a long time.
Fortunately, I eventually listened.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t the many years when:
I snapped at my kids, whose moods tracked mine, sending us all spiraling
My memory lapsed, I couldn’t remember names, people, basic facts
My hair started falling out
I consistently woke up at 3am, for the day, and fueled myself with caffeine and adrenaline, telling myself I was “totally fine”.
I always wore my down jacket in the house because my overtaxed body couldn’t warm itself
My heart arrhythmia kicked up, fluttering all day long
I only listened when I pushed beyond denial: As I was teetering on the edge of burnout, I took a leadership role in our state’s COVID response and flung myself off Burnout Falls.
Months and months of high pressure, high visibility, seven-day work weeks finally did for me what years of quiet early burnout symptoms could never do.
I slumped across the finish line of 2020, entered the new year an exhausted, wasted shell of myself, still unclear what was happening - but determined to never, ever feel this way again.
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With practical, evidence-backed practices, I taught myself to:
Genuinely rest, reset, and regenerate my nervous system - while living my life, in my job;
Build my self-awareness, reacquaint with what lights me up, and drop or bound what doesn’t;
With confidence and clarity, point this marvelously refurbished rocket to meaning and peace
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Today, I wake up with joy, not dread. My exercise is paced and my days are unrushed. Work feel playful.
This is possible for you too - if you know you’re built for better, and you’re ready to commit.
What would I tell my twenty-two-year-old self?
Or my thirty-five-year-old self who was about to freefall off Burnout Falls? Besides “forget the gorilla wrestling advice ASAP”, I’d say:
Ask yourself better questions.
Instead of: How do I survive, how do I keep up, how do I find another splinter of time in the day?
I’d ask:
What meaning would “surviving” bring to your life?
What important parts of yourself might get left behind?
What consequences might that have for the future?
Or instead of:
How can I take the edge off the fear of failure; the pain of misalignment, overwork, and pursuit of goals that bring little meaning to my life?
What do I do with all this physical agitation?
WHEN IS MY NEXT CROSS FIT CLASS AND WHY IS IT NOT RIGHT NOW?
I’d ask:
If you didn’t have your favorite coping mechanisms, what *would *you have?
And what would that tell you about what’s not working, right now?
What would you be doing instead if you didn’t have to cope?
Burnout doesn’t happen overnight.
It’s years of pushing through signals that something isn’t working.
Layer on a Big Thing - a job without boundaries, or meaning; the grind of working parenthood without support; or yet another moment of being asked to be someone you’re not - and you’ve got burnout.
The most damning thing about burnout is that it’s almost designed to hide itself from you. With anxiety-fueled sleeplessness and cognitive fog, it throws a blindfold over your eyes and marches you forward, further robbing you of self-awareness, judgment, and insight.
You think the stress is normal, and it’s your fault.
That’s why having some outside help can be so useful. Coaching removes the blindfold and helps you walk the path you actually want to walk.
No gorilla wrestling required
The story doesn’t end there
The verdant forest
So how am I doing now?
Maybe you’re wondering because you want to know… what exactly am I aiming for? What’s realistic?
Lots of folks in burnout can’t imagine an easy, peaceful, thriving future.
They just know — this isn’t it.
I’m a work in progress, not perfection.
But bit by bit, you’ll see some of the most treasured changes I’ve noticed for myself:
I wake up with energy. I’m ready, excited, and grateful for the day, even when it involves sick kids or dentist visits or commutes.
Decisions are straightforward. It doesn’t mean they’re pain-free, but because I know and accept myself and have come to love even the “worst” parts of me with self-compassion, I know the answers, and don’t let indecision, rumination, and self-doubt drain my energy.
I get MORE done, and love my job: because I’ve designed work for me, but I don’t define my worth through my job. It’s a joy, not an obligation, and with that kind of genuine voluntary enthusiasm, “production” feels easy and prolific.
I’m a WAY better parent: Burnout recovery doesn’t just give me energy, it transformed every single one of my relationships — especially with my kids. I learned what co-regulation really meant, and how my energy WAS their enegy. I’m neither trying to gentle parent my way through conflict-avoidance, nor am I snapping and shaming them for developmentally normal experiences that I just didn’t want to deal with, or that came from my permissiveness. I set limits, have boundaries, show up full of laughs and possibility.
My relationships are thriving, interdependent, authentic — and mirrors for my growth. Self-awareness combined with the skills of self-compassion, loving boundaries, and ownership of the experience mean that I allow people to love me as I really am. My relationships are mutually chosen, thriving, and, when there are rough patches, they show me my next growth opportunities.
I have emotional agility. The goal isn’t 24/7 zen, folks. It’s just the ability to come back, quickly and genuinely (repression doesn’t count!). No more anxiety spirals and being hijacked by fear, shame, or anger. I’ve figured out how to notice and welcome feelings (even the hard ones), let them move through me, and come back to earth.
I have a life-giving sense of agency. Don’t sleep on this one: remember, burnout tells us we’re fine and don’t need help or changes, it tells us we’re stuck, trapped, this is life, don’t try to change. But that’s not me anymore: I am not the victim, the rescuer, the martyr. I’m the challenger, coach, creator, and I honor my loved ones as I live a life that spirals upward.
I am still me, but I honor my burnout tells. Listen. I’m an intensely loving, feeling, working person. That is just not going to change any time soon, and I love that about myself. But damn, does it make burnout a real Hazard of Existing. So I know now how to walk the lines and pull back, nap, say no with love, complete stress cycles, rejuvenate with self-compassion, and get back on the field.
Stressors don’t define me: I’m not floating through a peaceful bubble of bliss all the time. Life cranks up to level 10 still, and it sucks. But it is also not catastrophic, nor is it something I pretend is okay. I cut back on workouts (workouts = stress, even if its good stress). I nap more. I slow down. There is blank space. There are a LOT of walks and drives with nothing in my ears. I get less done for a little while. I cry. I grieve. I open up to my safe people.
I let the hard stuff move through so it doesn’t take up residence.
But guess what DOES move in? Threads of joy.
Yes, even in the hardest of times, bright-eyed awe, belly laughs, and delight appear like life boats to carry you through the waves.
This is what burnout recovery can look like.
It’s always a work in progress. It’s always visiting your same weak spots, but each time with better tools, more self awareness, and the self-compassion to fuel the changes your overwhelmed, inner-critic-driven brain won’t dare let you consider right now.
What It’s Like to Work With Me
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Self-awareness over self-improvement: You are enough, you are inherently worthy and good. You do not need to be better.
Self-awareness uncovers that good, it removes the junk that blinds you to reality, what you really want, your actual capacities and interests. It allows you to show up as a good person, the good person you are.
Practical, immediately-useful tools AND root-level awareness: You need help now. That’s why you’re here. And that’s what I can offer — both immediate support, and deep insights that help you lead yourself through many rounds of upward spirals.
I’ll meet you where you are: Right in the mess, the blank stare of indecision, with whatever you’ve got (or don’t), without judgment. Just show up, committed to change and doing the work.
I believe you are whole, capable, and resourceful and, with support, are the best guide to your own healing. That doesn’t mean you have to have the answers - that’s why you’ve come to coaching - but it does mean that you’re the boss on what matters and why, what’s working, where you want to go, and - of the many paths we an take - how you want to get there.
Evidence-guided, but not evidence-limited: We’re going to use tools science has rigorously tested and validated:
Neuroscience including the latest understanding of neurodivergence
Strengths-based change (positive psychology and appreciative inquiry)
Somatic science
Nutrition and exercise science (with curiosity and out shame or judgment - you can keep your chocolate!)
“Weathering” and the effect of accumulated stress, particularly for folks of color, on the body
The effects of trauma on the body and cognition
And we’re also going to use your own wisdom, experience, and body signals to figure out what works in your life, right now.
Body Awareness: Research has shown that much of what we think of as the mind - our thoughts, feelings, the “facts” we know - is actually the mind making sense of body signals.
We’ll use evidence-based somatic awareness tools to get clear on what your mind might cloud or miss.
Trauma-informed: Many of the behaviors that bring us to burnout can be trauma responses (whether we know we’ve experienced trauma or not):
People pleasing
Conflict avoidance
Hyper independence
Perfectionism
Passive-aggressiveness
Co-dependence
Anxiety
Reflexively prioritizing others over your own needs
Dissociation / “checking out”
Hypervigilance for threat, including scanning for signs in other people’s behaviors and emotions
These are coping mechanisms learned early on to survive overwhelming experiences. They’re still with you and are holding you back from living a life of sustainable joy.
No need to disclose, no need to dive in, unless you want. Just know that we’ll move at a pace your nervous system can sustain, I’ll seek consent at each step, and I’ll bring an understanding of how trauma affects the brain, and body, to craft a tailored recovery plan for you.
Practice, every week, in your real life: Our 1-hour coaching sessions will introduce big shifts to your life and teach you tools to get out of burnout - but the real work of coaching happens in the other 167 hours of the week as you put in the reps.
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I had been informally coaching and guiding folks for years before I decided to make it a formal practice. Because, after leading myself through profound changes, I learned that my super power is compassionately coaching people into sustainable change, into a thriving life they can’t yet imagine.
Yes, I’ve lived the burnout life, and pulled myself up and out, for good. I’ve learned skills and tools that allow me to spot and swap out the earliest burnout signs for healthier behaviors so it doesn’t take hold.
With help from therapists, coaches, and my trusted people, I’ve healed - and am healing - what keeps me stuck, down to the deepest root-level behaviors.
And I’ve done that across my adult life stages - dependent-less full time professional and part time grad student + athlete all the way through full time director-level leader, while also being a double overtime parent of twins and committed basement lifter with a full social life.
But you may be interested in some other qualifications:
Almost 20 years experience leading sustainable change at the organization and community levels through teams - team whose culture is healthy, sustainable contribution and mutual support.
Appreciation for the complex and complete: I’ve worked from every angle of our healthcare system: clinical/provider, state government, legislative and policy, major insurance carrier, academic / research, among others. A holistic understanding of this enormously complex system helps me understand complex systems at every level - including the most complex: humans and their individual worlds.
Data nerd with a heart: My career has centered on how data can open people’s hearts to change that sticks.
I found my success when I followed this surprising truth: People make decisions first with their body, then their emotions, and then finally their intellectual minds, looking to data to back up the story their body knows is right for them.
But most people don’t know that. They believe they are objective, “the data don’t lie!” deciders.
That fine - I just meet folks where they are and help them make the best decisions for what they truly value, just as I’ll do with you.
Formally trained, and forever training: My number one value is growth and learning, and I’m continuously building my practice with formal, intensive training by pursuing credentialing with the International Coaching Federation (ICF).
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Hopefully, my values and approach, my qualifications, my energy and personality that come through the page have you saying, “Hell yeah, I’m ready for this, let’s go.”
But maybe not. It’s not for everyone, and that’s okay.
Specifically, it’s not for you if:
You are comfortable where you are, even if it’s not great. Sometimes the pain of the present - and the pull of what could be - just isn’t enough for us to leave behind safety, even if safety sometimes sucks.
And when that changes, I’ll still be here.
You aren’t ready for feedback. My style is warm, empathetic, and strengths-based - and my job is to disrupt the patterns that are keeping you stuck.
It will always be kind, it will always be from love, but if I’m doing my job well, it will often be uncomfortable.
You’re stuck in victim mentality: Someone or something else is responsible for your pain, they are to blame for your actions, and nothing will get better until they or it changes.
It’s not a workable mentality in coaching, in building the self-awareness needed to find sustainable joy. If you’re stuck here, that’s okay - therapy, not coaching, is probably the right next step for you.
You want someone to fix you: I know, this is confusing. I’m a coach offering to help you escape burnout, for good - isn’t that the same thing as fixing you?
No, very much not. I’m here to be your informed mirror and reflect back to you what you might not be able to see; to be your demolition buddy and help you clear away the junk you’ve normalized and be your co-conspirator to build your own compelling vision of the future.
I’ll share tools with you. I’ll question your assumptions, I’ll ask you hard questions your friends don’t ask. I’ll breathe with you through tears.
But I will not, and cannot, fix you.
Coaching is a LOT of inner work. And where we’re going in not “perfect”, it’s “self-aware” - Self. Aware.
Not “Kim-aware”.
You, aware of you. You monitoring your slides, your gains, your tells. You noticing the moment to moment body needs and signals. You trusting you.
You got this. But only you can got this.