Transcript: Thanks, Allan. This is David Brower. Our special guest today is Pam Day. She’s a certified life spiritual coach, an artist, a writer, musician, and she owns the Breathing Space here where I live in Loveland, Colorado.
Pam Day: Hi, David. I’m well. Thanks for having me today.
David Brower: You bet. I’ve been excited about this relatively new venture of yours, even for a while, and even though you’ve been doing this life coach thing for quite a while, right?
Pam Day: Yeah. About 10 years, I think, now.
David Brower: What got you into that? What was the epiphany that said, “I think I need to be a life coach”?
Pam Day: Well, it was kind of a natural transition, looking back. Just seeing what, doing some assessments and some, I don’t know, reflection about how I’m created and designed, and that’s just one of the passions and gifts that I feel like I’ve been given, and it’s been kind of a natural process all my life of people just coming to me, and talking and telling me stuff about them and where their hurts and hang ups are. And I thought about counseling, and I decided … Then I heard about life coaching, and that was interesting to me because it helps people really move forward in their life, so it’s not so much dealing with people maybe in crisis, which is very important and healing, as well, but the coaching part was more interesting and seemed to fit me better. To help people just really see what potential they have. Sometimes we just all need people to come alongside us and cheer us on and support us, and give us the kick in the butt sometimes that we need and the resources. And finding out more about who they are.
Pam Day: Yeah. When I learned about that, I thought, “I want to take training for that.” So I did.
David Brower: Nice. It sounds like that you help people get through what you worked yourself through. In other words, you found yourself. You found your life’s purpose, your life’s passion, you got some training to help you get to where you wanted to go, and in effect, you’re really helping people transition through phases in their life similarly. Is that right?
Pam Day: Yes, absolutely. That’s exactly right.
David Brower: Tell me about the training. What was involved in that?
Pam Day: I took training with a training facility or school called Coach You. It was a two year training. That was the basic training and then you can go back for lots of different certifications and things, but yeah. It was all on the phone. I had people from all over the world in my class, so that was really cool, to get to know some of those people. And it really helped. Being on the phone, I thought, was really strange at first, but it really helped your listening skills. They really taught a lot about how to be present and really listen to people because people really need to be heard.
David Brower: Absolutely.
Pam Day: And you can hear if they’re smiling or whatever on the phone.
David Brower: Oh, that’s right. Yeah.
Pam Day: Oddly enough.
David Brower: No. I mean, I do voiceover work for a living, so I totally get that. It makes perfect sense to me. The other thing, I think, is because you were so, and I’m just guessing a little bit here, but because you were so in tune with yourself and found your way, and you listened to yourself, obviously, you’re able to not only listen to folks that come to you, but also you have some kind of instant credibility I think, because you have to be in a place where people are willing to be vulnerable fairly easily, right?
Pam Day: Yeah, they have to feel safe with you and feel that they can trust you. I have found that people feel that way with me.
David Brower: That’s a gift right there.
Pam Day: For some reason. I guess it’s because I’m wired that way.
David Brower: Yeah.
Pam Day: Yeah, I’m very grateful for that.
David Brower: People can tell whether you’re authentic or not, you know.
Pam Day: Yeah. And that’s one of my values, is to be authentic.
David Brower: Absolutely. Well, good for you. It’s so hard for us to know, even to identify what’s authentic, I think, in our lives sometimes because we’re all going so fast in so many different directions, and we’re all into immediate gratification, and what am I gonna do tomorrow, and all those kinds of stress and passions and pace. How do you catch your breath, if you will, to figure out what your authenticity is?
Pam Day: I think you hit the nail on the head, is that we have to stop. I think a lot of us get to a point in our lives where we don’t know which end is up, and we have this mental, or physical sometimes, breakdown. I think our society is getting sicker and sicker mentally, physically and spiritually because, like you said, we’re going at such a fast pace and we’re not taking time to come back to ourselves and ask ourselves those questions of, what are my gifts? Who am I? What do I want? Spiritually, what does God want me to be doing? How does he want me to show up? So we just have to stop and look at that. And sometimes we need help with someone else, like a life or spiritual coach, or whatever, to bounce that off of someone else and then reflect that to us, what … Sometimes it’s easier to hear it from someone else what we need.
David Brower: Boy, that’s the truth, isn’t it? We get in our own way when we’re trying to figure things out and to have an objective ear to mirror our conversations back to us has got to be invaluable.
Pam Day: Yeah. It’s very helpful.
David Brower: And you have to have, I would think, the balance, right, between mentally, physically and spiritually. I mean, don’t you want to try to … You want to be healthy in all of those areas, but it seems like you’d want to have some kind of balance in some way, and I don’t know how you pay attention to that.
Pam Day: Well, it all goes together. I think our society is very, they push maybe more of the physical part sometimes. You know, get to the gym and lose weight, and all of that. And that’s very good and we definitely need that, but I think you’re right. We need balance and we need to pay attention. It’s just that part of being aware. I think once we start being more and more aware, then we see that our bodies are talking to us mentally and spiritually, too. And then vice verse. Just they all go together in more of a holistic package, if we can look at it that way.
David Brower: That makes sense. When somebody comes to visit you at the Breathing Space, which is coincidentally around the corner from my house, and I went to a session at your place, which we can talk about later. When somebody comes into the Breathing Space, what do they experience there? What are they greeted with? How do you find a comfortable place for them to begin?
Pam Day: Well, I’m thinking about my client that was in there just a few weeks ago, and he had not been in before. The first thing that he experienced when he walked in the door, and I was just watching him. I was actually surprised, but he came in and he just stopped right there in the front door in the reception room. He just closed his eyes and he said, “I can’t believe how peaceful it feels just walking in here.” He said it smelled good. Just looking around, it just … He could really feel that peace. And that was such a confirmation and encouragement because that’s what people, I feel sometimes are missing in their lives, is that peace. I really want them to feel that when they first come in the door.
David Brower: And boy, for him to walk in the first time, not even get to the back of the reception room and just stop, close his eyes, and know he’s in the right place, what a gift that is for both of you.
Pam Day: Yeah. Yeah, it was great. Very great.
David Brower: So, staying with him as an example without any confidentiality issues. I don’t know him from Adam. You got him in the front door. He stopped. He closed his eyes. He knows he’s in a comfortable place. He knows it’s safe. He feels all those things right away. Then where do you take him? What’s your first really conversation about?
Pam Day: Well, he had already set up … He wanted to come and experience the sacred space retreat room. So that was why he was there. And so, I led him back into the kitchen area. I always offer my clients some coffee or tea or water. Then I showed him around the place a little bit, just so he could get his, you know feel more comfortable knowing what doors were what and stuff, and then I led him back into the sacred space room, and let him just sit there for a minute while I went out. And then I came back in and explained what the sacred space room was about, and he already knew that he wanted just some time alone that was focused. Non-distracted time that he could spend thinking about some of his goals that he wanted to be accomplishing this year, but he also wanted to spend some time spiritually with God. So I have some tools in that room, mindfulness types of things, books and different things that help with just meditation and mindfulness, but he had his own idea, I guess.
David Brower: He knew what he wanted, yeah. Yeah. Mindfulness is really the new buzzword of the last couple of years, isn’t it? I mean, not only mentally, spiritually, physically, food. I mean, every, mindfulness comes up a lot in my experience the last year or two.
Pam Day: It does. It does. It’s really an ancient practice, but you’re right. It is kind of a buzzword these last few years.
David Brower: And really, it means, I guess in the most simplistic terms, just be mindful, be thinking about, be conscious about what you’re doing, what you’re thinking, what you’re feeling, right?
Pam Day: Yeah. I think it’s, like you said, be thinking about it, being conscious. I like to say, just pay attention. Be aware. Be aware and pay attention.
David Brower: There you go. Yeah.
Pam Day: And I think somehow, too, it helps when we are aware. It helps bring us to the present because we so often spend a lot of our time in our thoughts, thinking about the past or thinking about the future. And so being mindful and being really aware helps us be in the now. And really that is all we, in actuality, actually have, is right now because we don’t know what the future is, and the past is gone.
David Brower: But yet the present is what we avoid so much of the time.
Pam Day: Right, yes. Isn’t that interesting?
David Brower: That’s fascinating to me. It really is. I mean, here’s the present. Here’s where you want to be. Here’s how you should feel. No, I’m busy thinking about the future and I’m dwelling on the past.
Pam Day: It is. It is.
David Brower: That is so much what we do. So, you help people find that sweet spot, for lack of a better term.
Pam Day: That mindfulness and meditation really has changed my life, learning about it and practicing it. Not that I’m an expert by any means, but it really, like I said, changed my life. I am really passionate about trying to help people get into that spot, like you said.
David Brower: And you’re paying it forward big time.
Pam Day: Yeah.
David Brower: Right?
Pam Day: Yeah.
David Brower: Yeah, I think so. I went to one of your retreats a week or two ago. A men’s retreat, I believe you called it.
Pam Day: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
David Brower: And if I remember right, the theme of it or the idea behind it was to get together as men, have some conversations, some dialogue, think about what your goals are for 2018, and then you facilitated us to be as present as we knew how to be, and have conversation. Tell us about that from your perspective, how that particular event went.
Pam Day: Well, I thought it was great. I find that leading men’s retreats are really, really fun for me. A lot of my clients actually, even coaching clients and the sacred space clients are men. I don’t know if that is because there’s not a lot of outlets for men to find some places where they can, like you said, get together and discuss, if they want to, some more meaningful conversation, have meaningful conversation, but also just an outlet for self-care. I think society is very targeting women to go, and spa days and all of this kind of thing.
David Brower: Right, right.
Pam Day: I guess, if you want to call that … I mean, it is self-care, but I find that men sometimes don’t get that kind of outlet to express themselves in a safe place, and also do something creative and, like you said, think about your goals and what you want and reflection time.
David Brower: I really enjoyed it. It was way out of my comfort zone, to be honest with you.
Pam Day: Was it?
David Brower: Yeah. And I really enjoyed it. I mean, it was out of my comfort zone because I was raised by a single mom basically because my dad was gone so much. Pretty much raised by a single mom and her five sisters. So, being in touch with the female part of my life has always been a breeze. Being in touch and being comfortable with guys has always been a struggle because of my issues with my dad, and different things like that. And so, when our church, as an example, has a men’s retreat and they’re going up in the mountains and there’s 300 guys, I could care less about going there. I don’t want to be one of 300, even though it’s very productive, very spiritual, very mentally satisfying, very physically satisfying. It’s just not a comfortable place for me. So, to go to your place the other night and sit around the table with eight guys and work on some creative stuff that spoke to our soul and spirit and how we felt about different things in life, it started out being out of my comfort zone, and at the end I’m going, “That was awesome.”
David Brower: I mean, yeah. It caught me by surprise how enjoyable and how it helped me to be centered. It was really good.
Pam Day: That’s fantastic. And you did an excellent job. It was really cool to see what you came up with for your vision board.
David Brower: Oh, thanks.
Pam Day: Yeah.
David Brower: We’ve only got a couple of minutes left, so I want to have people understand how they can get in touch with you. I mean, I know you have the sacred space, so they need to go to your website, which is BreathingSpaceCO.com, and you can learn about the sacred space, and a bunch of your different kinds of retreats. What kind of retreats and things do you have coming up?
Pam Day: I’ve got another men’s retreat in February, that same one that we did, the vision board. Then I’ve got a couples retreat for Valentines.
David Brower: Nice.
Pam Day: Then I’m gonna start doing a sabbath retreat. I’m gonna do that maybe once a month. And a meditation retreat for people that are beginner meditators and want to learn how to do it.
David Brower: Oh, I’ll sign up for that.
Pam Day: So, all of those are group retreat.
David Brower: I’ll sign up for the meditation one. Yeah.
Pam Day: Yeah, cool.
David Brower: Yeah.
Pam Day: Yeah, I think that will be great. And then I have the, like you said, the sacred space and the life coaching, as well.
David Brower: Yeah.
Pam Day: And all of that is on my website.
David Brower: Nice. My other question is, because I’ve talked to different people with this podcast, about different things that they’re using to help people with and all that. And one lady I talked to a while back, she is a resilience and life storytelling expert. Fascinating. But what was interesting to me was she does a webinar once a month. So people can join that webinar, have conversations, and I’m wondering if that’s something that you’re thinking about because I mean, obviously in northern Colorado, this is easy for people to get in touch with you and all those kinds of things. But I would think that at some point, having a webinar where you could touch people around the world would be fascinating.
Pam Day: It would be. I haven’t gotten there yet in my brain or technology-wise, I guess, but I’ve attended webinars and I really enjoy them, so maybe so in the future.
David Brower: Yeah. I think you’d be great at it. I think you’d be great at it. Yeah. I’ll help you. I know how to do those. All right.
Pam Day: Oh, great. Awesome.
David Brower: We’ve been talking with Pam Day from Breathing Space, where you can find peace inside. It is just such a gift that you share with the people that you come in contact with. It’s a pleasure to call you my friend, and I’m blessed to be able to attend your sessions, and I will sign up for the meditation one. I think that’ll be cool.
Pam Day: That’s great. Well, thank you. Thank you so much for this interview, David. This was really fun.
David Brower: You bet, Pam.
Pam Day: I appreciate you.
David Brower: All right. Thank you so much.
Allan Blackwell: Your 20 minute podcast with David Brower has been brought to you by Audible. You can listen to any of David’s podcasts anywhere podcasts can be found, including I Heart Radio, the Spotify mobile app, and the DavidBrowerVO.com/your20minutepodcast. Until next time, thanks for listening.