About

Ever since I could remember, I always had a sweet spot for helping others, being a crying shoulder and the friend that could hold the darkest of secrets without judgement. I come from Russian immigrant parents that moved to this country with nothing. They always reminded me that college was the only option in their eyes for me to be successful, and their mindset was if I didn’t go to college, I would amount to nothing. Needless to say, they didn’t save a dime for me to go to college and never educated me on how expensive it was or how loans work; I cannot blame this on my parents are they were just as unaware. Oh, I should also mention that I come from a very broken and abusive home. The fight or flight response was in full gear 24/7, no calm but only storms in my way, which essentially led to my underlying anxiety. I was the true definition of a perfectionist and the word “failure” has always made me cringe.

Anyway, college applications started and I was accepted into a private, basically female dominated college. I still had no idea what I wanted to do, but ended up attending this college regardless and after my first year, I was very unhappy in that type of setting, so I transferred to the state college in my city. I had changed my major so many times from accounting to nursing to psychology, you name it, nothing was sparking my interest. A year later, I ended up moving to New York City with my then boyfriend because he got into medical school there. With an acceptance to a very well known city college in Manhattan well known for their business programs, I took the opportunity to attend. I was still lost when attending school, taking pre-recs for something that I didn’t even know. I talked to several academic advisers and let them know that I wanted to do something with children and being able to help them, because both of those things sparked me up. It wasn’t until I ended up talking to a fellow classmate who suggested different fields in helping people, and one of them was speech-language pathology. Speech-language pathology caught my attention and started doing some research.

At the same time, I was struggling severely emotionally/mentally to the point of ended up having a nervous breakdown and was hospitalized. It was the fear of not knowing, feeling like a failure and inadequate, living in a new city with no support, the list goes on. Eventually, I got back up on my feet again and ended up breaking up with my boyfriend and moving back home, transferring back to the city college I was attending prior to moving to NYC. a I started taking some courses for speech-language pathology and audiology (more so in the audiology courses) and was completed hooked! I had finally found my niche and calling! I was thriving in my classes, eager to learn, earned an outstanding student award, had great relationship with my professors, etc. They highly recommended that I continue with my masters in speech-language pathology or doctorate in audiology. Audiology was definitely my niche. I started applying for graduate programs at 8 different schools for audiology and 1 speech-language pathology program as “backup.” For the audiology program, I was rejected from 6 schools, wait-listed and eventually rejected from 2 other schools and wait-listed from my “backup.” Talk about feeling shameful and defeated.

Eventually, I got an acceptance letter to Cleveland State University (the undergraduate program I graduated from) for speech-language pathology. Although it wasn’t my first choice, I felt lucky enough to even have the opportunity and ended up accepting this position, I knew it would please everyone else but myself. My first semester in this program, I struggled really bad with my anxiety and the fact that I wasn’t enjoying what I was doing, along with the politics, the grading system, and favoritism that I was seeing on a daily basis. IT was so bad that I ended up giving up my first semester and had to be medicated because my anxiety was that debilitating, kind of like what I experienced back in New York City Luckily for me, I had a good rapport and relationship with most of the professors and they let me come back into the program after a few weeks off. It took me a little longer to graduate, but I ended up graduating in hopes to landing a clinical fellowship (36 weeks supervised) a job in a school working with kiddos. I struggled to find my “dream” job and ended up accepting a job in a skilled nursing home working with geriatric patients mainly with dementia/alzheimers, strokes, swallowing disorders. Every single day was a freaking struggle. It never seemed to get any easier, and I found myself crying in my car after each shift and utterly exhausted mentally and physically when I would get home, affecting my personal life and relationship with my now fiance. I didn’t feel competent enough and it was always “fake it till you make it”. On top of that, I was being micromanaged and basically demanded to do things that just didn’t feel right. All the other therapists listened and I would see them doing unethical things to “meet their productivity” so our managers and therapists wouldn’t get dinged. Luckily my clinical fellowship supervisor was a very ethical and wonderful mentor who always told me to put my foot down and question when things didn’t feel right. I ended up quitting this job, also thinking that maybe it was just this skilled nursing facility, but ended up getting a job at another nursing facility, which was even worse than the one before. I quit and gave it a third chance by taking a maternity leave position at a well known skilled nursing facility close to my home. I COULD NOT WAIT FOR THIS MATERNITY LEAVE TO BE OVER, seriously some of the most difficult three months of my life. Enough was enough and I was done with skilled nursing facilities.

I ended up going to work full-time at the restaurant I had worked at in between my undergrad/graduate school time and let me tell you, that job was no stress at all. I got to socialize with people, be active and eat my favorite food. I was then also called for an interview for a per-diem home health job speech-pathology job. I had never done home health, but was ready to take on a new challenge and never go back to the skilled nursing setting. I definitely liked this setting much more because it gave me more autonomy, I could make my own schedule, decline/accept clients when I wanted, etc. The biggest downfall though was the amount of paperwork, the flakiness of clients and inconsistency. A few months after getting this job, my fiance and I ended up moving to Austin, TX. Luckily the company I was working for back home has a branch in Austin, so I continued per-diem with them and was also offered a per-diem home health job for a pediatric home health company. This pediatric home-health position was basically like starting graduate school all over again. I was so lost with very little guidance, it became too much and my anxiety got the best of me and I ended up quitting.

I ended up picking up a job a brand new restaurant and was so relieved. It was fun, I was socializing with people and making friends, helping others and being a good leader/team player. However, in the back of my mind, all I could hear was the shame and and disappointment from my father that I had worked so hard to get a Masters degree, and here I was working as a waitress. After a few months of working at the restaurant, I was offered a full-time position for the home health company that I started out with back home and gladly accepted. For 6 months, getting a full-time caseload was nearly impossible and I was barely making enough money to get my bills paid, along with the 6k debt I acquired from student loans. I started applying for other jobs and decided to go back to per-diem status with the home health company and part-time at the restaurant. Literally a week later, I got a call for an interview at an inpatient rehabilitation hospital in which they offered me a per-diem position, and me being the perfectionist I am, took on the job. My schedule was again so inconsistent and unpredictable and it was starting to take a toll on me, so I started to look for other jobs outside of my degree, however had no idea what to look for and felt so pigeonholed, There crept in the fear and that “You’re not good enough or worthy” mindset. I wanted a job where I could help people but wouldn’t be micromanaged, make my own schedule, and have the ability to enjoy my life and pay my bills. I knew speech-language pathology was not my calling, yet felt shameful and guilt for trying to leave, So I kept kept trying to stick it out. My mindset was just fear, fear to fail, fear to start anything new and not be good enough, fear of lacking knowledge and skills, fear of people (social anxiety), the list goes on.

I ended up finding a group titled “SLP Transitions: Non-clinical and out-of-scope career paths. It was like a breath of fresh air seeing hundreds of other speech-language pathologists wanting out of the field but also feeling lost on where to go. One night, I had been scrolling through some of the posts and saw a post that was literally exactly how I was feeling. One of the responses that post had gotten really caught my eye. It was a very genuine post and the way this woman described what shes doing now made me light up, so I decided to check out her facebook page. I noticed she lives in Austin and as nervous as I was, I got the courage and ended up messaging her. We ended up meeting face-to face and I felt an instant connection with Devin. This woman understood and related to exactly how I was feeling. She didn’t make me feel pressured to buy something. We had a deep and REAL conversation, relating to each-other on so many levels. As nervous as I was to invest in a life coach, I felt confident putting my trust in her. This was seriously one of the best decisions that I have made. The biggest lesson she has taught me so far has been mindset. Mindset is key to everything! My negative and fearful mindset was going to get me nowhere and she has been helping me to break out of that shell. She challenges me, yet cheers me on and gives me all the support I need to shifting my mindset and to let in abundance and gratitude. Not only have I noticed changes, but even my loved ones around me have noticed and that was all because of my trust in Devin. She continues to work with me now on my visions and goals and really digging deeper to my success, happiness and freedom. I am limitless!

I have never been a consistent person, it has always been difficult for me to establish and maintain a routine and stick to something and I could win gold metals for procrastination; however I also knew that I was sick and tired of, well, feeling sick and tired. I was super excited and afraid at the same time going into this new journey with a life coach because in the back of my mind, that little voice kept telling me “Go ahead, but you’re not strong enough and you’re going to quit anyway.” One of the first exercises Devin challenged me with was a journaling routine. “FUUUCK!” No joke, first thought in my head. I could feel that twisting feeling in my stomach, the knot in my throat and my heart pumping like a cheetah chasing a gazelle. The next day, the thought of journaling and how to get started was overwhelming, but later in the day, I found myself at TJ MAXX looking through the section with journals and found a pretty blue journal titled “believe.” I took a picture of the journal and sent it to Devin and she was ecstatic. Never have I had anyone be proud of me for such a small little thing such as buying a journal and I liked this feeling. I remember my first morning journaling, I felt so uncomfortable. Devin had provided me with a good little template on a good way to journal and what to include, which is about 8 sections. I felt compelled to only stick to that entire format and started to feel overwhelmed. Jane the perfectionist had to fill out EVERY single section from the template she provided me, otherwise it wasn’t good enough, so I reached out to Devin, Once again, she re-assured me and calmed me down, she let me know I don’t have to fill out every section of the template she provided, even if I only did once section, it was OK! I followed her advice and started with journaling 2-3 times a week and starting with about 2 sections. Eventually I started to feel more comfortable to add more sections to my journaling and doing it more consistently as the weeks went by. For the last three months, I have journaled almost every morning and every section, depending on how I am feeling and I don’t put myself down if I don’t complete every section; instead, i close that journal with a smile on my face because something is better than nothing and this has been the most consistent I have ever been with anything, what an accomplishment!

Gratitude and affirmations. These words didn’t exist in my vocabulary or how I viewed myself and the world. As mentioned before, my brain has always been fight or flight, always expecting and preparing for the worst, never did I stop to think, what if everything is going to be OK? As part of my journaling process, a prompt that Devin suggests is practicing gratitude and writing out at least 3 things that I am greatful for everyday. She also had me do an exercise where I was to write out 20 positive things about myself and have 3 friends tell me my goods and not so goods. There it was, I was forced to write only good things about myself and honestly, it wasn’t as hard or scary as I thought it would be. Practicing gratitude and having affirmations has been a great foundation to also shifting my mindset. I am so much more aware and in control when that negative Nancy of a voice starts to creep in, Instead of “Well, I don’t have the skills and I can’t do that,” my mind goes to “I may not have the skills, but I have an abundance of information to learn those skills,” For so long, I thought it was nearly impossible to actually be happy and believe that I am in control! I still have a long way to go, but its seriously night and day the person that I am today versus the person I have been for the last almost 32 years, kicking ass one day at a time.

It all started when…

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