When was the last time you felt deeply heard? Nurse and Three Principles practitioner Wendy Williams shares the impact deep listening has on both the listener and those being listened to. We also discuss the priceless benefits that understanding every human’s innate resilience can have for nurses and other healers.

As a nurse educator and clinician for over 25 years, Wendy Williams helps people facing extraordinary (and ordinary) challenges to move forward with grace and ease. She is an experienced mental well-being educator.

As Wendy sees it (and teaches it), we are meant to thrive in this world, but sometimes we get stuck. Whether it’s being swept up in the whirlwind of everyday life or struggling to overcome a major life hurdle, getting back on track, and moving forward can, and will, happen quite naturally. Wendy’s deep experience mixed with her practical and kind-hearted teaching & education point the way forward.

You can find Wendy Williams at ForwardWithWendy.com and on Facebook at Find Your Way Forward.

You can listen above, on your favorite podcast app, or watch on YouTube. Notes, links, resources and a full transcript are below.

Show Notes

Resources Mentioned in this Episode

Alexandra: Wendy Williams, welcome to Unbroken. 

Wendy: Thank you very much for having me. I’m excited to be here with you. 

Alexandra: Oh, I’m excited, you’re here as well. So let’s begin with a little bit of your background.

Wendy: Sure thing. Well, I live in the northeastern part of the United States near Boston, Massachusetts, I have been a nurse for more years. I got married at the ancient age of 38 to a guy that I just adore, even as we speak, I adore him. 

I have been a nurse, like I say, for a very long time, specializing for years in conditions like HIV AIDS, cancer, hospice, so I’m a real pro at the bedside when people are saying goodbye. And, a lot of what I do happens to do with ongoing or chronic pain. 

I’m still practicing as a nurse in that regard. But I’m also having a real focus on bringing the Three Principles to a wider community in health care, because a lot of my sisters and brothers in health care are kind of tired and burning out a little bit, especially after the pandemic. So I’m excited to extend the ripples, as I say, for the awakening, that certainly the Three Principles is brought to my life and many people that I know. 

Alexandra: Wow. You’re not just dealing with giving people flu shots, and mending broken fingers. 

Wendy: Absolutely. It was an interesting thing, when I was a brand new nurse I worked on what we call a medical surgical floor, which is a catch all phrase, meaning somebody broke a leg, somebody’s got appendicitis and but just kind of general routine things that you need to be in a hospital for for a bit. There were a lot of orthopedic problems on that floor, broken hips, broken, knees, whatever. 

There was this one lady in there who had cancer in her bones. And so a lot of what we had to do for her was find a way to make her comfortable, we knew that the cancer wasn’t going to ever leave that was going to be, , part of her last days. And so that is what we call the report in the morning. 

The new nursing staff for the day arrives at 6:30 in the morning, and gets the report from the night nurses who says this is what’s going on, this is what people need. And it was interesting to me, I said, huh, this is kind of interesting to notice that all the other nurses were like, Oh, that lady in seventh with the bone cancer. And I was like, bring the lady with the bone. 

I was a young woman, I was 20 to 23. And so that was a clue. I said, Hmm, I’m drawn to that. I feel interested in that. And it became very, very clear to me that every loved one that was standing around her bed, wringing their hands, or holding their hands or crying, was also my patient. It wasn’t just the person in the bed. 

You’re not afraid. I used to say to other nurses, when nurses were trying to figure out what they wanted to do with their lives. To your point, some people are very well suited to bandages and broken fingers and flu shots. And some of us are drawn to other things. 

I said, if you feel like when you go and buy a house, and it’s up in flames, and you feel like you want to run in and get people, you might be a cancer nurse or an oncology nurse, or a nurse who likes to work with death and dying. But if you want to run away and go call the cops or call the fire department and say I’ll be right here when they come out, but I’m not going. I said but I was one of those people said I gotta get in there and get somebody. I think it just was just kind of the way I’m built. I’m designed.

Alexandra: Oh, that’s so interesting.

Wendy: It was my first job. It was this general medical surgical floor and then as a result of working with that lady I found my next job at a very well established cancer center here in Boston called Dana Farber Cancer Institute. That was the next job and so I built my career on a foundation of getting to know people well at very difficult times. 

Now, lots of cancer patients do very well, and go on. And I so I hope this is interesting to you. But anyway, so some nurses, again, , if they say, All right, what’s wrong? Oh, you need a flu shot? Got it. Let’s give you the flu shot. Okay, next. Okay. What do you need? You need a new bandage. Okay, got it. Next. 

I was the one that said, Oh, you need chemotherapy this week? How’s it going? Did you have a good rough time last week? Oh, yeah. Okay, well, we’ll fix it this week. And then I would see them the next week, and then the next week, and then the next week. And then I might say yeah, you don’t need more chemotherapy, we’ll see when five months with your checkup. And I’ll make sure I’m there. 

So there are some nurses, some healthcare providers that love that kind of longer path of relationship and building on that. And then there are some people who say, I just want to go in, take care of you and move on. Like a labor and delivery nurse. Let’s get that baby. Okay. Next, let’s get that baby next. Whereas an oncology nurse, or, , other chronic illnesses, really enjoy that longer term association with people.

Wendy: Quite late. I’ve no problem telling you, I’m almost 66 years old, and I’ve been a nurse since I was 22 or 23. But I discovered the principles, let’s see, if I had to do the math right now, I’d say like eight years ago. So when I was 57 or 58. 

And it was a really interesting little rabbit hole of YouTube videos,  what I’m talking about?

Alexandra: Yes.

Wendy: I was working on another avenue of deep interest to me, which is relationship health, how marriages can be a soft place to land. There’s a lot of medical literature out there about people who do better after a heart attack, or do better after chemotherapy, or their symptoms aren’t as bad if they have a soft place to land at home with a really solid relationship. So that intrigued me, that kind of marriage of relationship health with physical health. That was intriguing to me. 

So I was looking in the direction of developing a coaching business regarding marriage health, or relationship health, a lot of evidence bases out there for that sort of stuff. And so there was this guy, Steve Chandler, he’s really smart. He knows what he’s talking about. I was like, okay, like, as a coach, like, okay, Steve Chandler, and Steve Chandler said, the best or the smartest, or the most accomplished psychologist of the 20th century, George Pransky. 

And I said, George Pransky? Never heard of that name. Now, I wasn’t always in psychological realm of nursing care. But I was like, George Pransky, I would think I would heard of him. I’ve heard a few is the best psychologist of the 20th century. So of course, I rabbit hole my way over there. 

One of the videos was of George Pransky and Steve Chandler talking to each other. And if  anything, about George Pransky, and Steve Chandler,  that they talk very much like this: very articulate, very slow, very deliberate. And this was in the days before I knew that you could speed up a YouTube video. So I felt myself going, please, I’m begging you wrap it up. I know what you’re gonna say next. Could you just speak more quickly? 

And the funny thing was that in the beginning of that particular video, as I recall it, Steve Chandler said to George, he said, George, have you heard that if you and I ever run out of clients, we can have another job making videos or audios for people who want to go to sleep? Isn’t that great? So the two of them just laughed and whatever. And I was like, Yeah, ha, that’s funny. 

There was something in the talk about the Three Principles. I don’t know the words. I don’t know what was said. But it was that feeling and a recognition. I don’t think I’ve ever used that word until this moment. It was a recognition of, Oh, I’ve always known who I am. I’ve always known that every patient I’ve ever come across, every person I’ve ever dealt with in my life, I’ve always known that they were made of good stuff, and good stock. And I’ve always known that we are ideally suited to live in this world that we’ve been put in. 

But there was something that said, See, I wanted to show other people there was nobody in the room but me, I’m like, see, this is what I’ve been talking about. And I couldn’t put words to it. But it was this recognition of, yes, yes, this is how we work. This is what we’re made to work like, and all the bumps and valleys of life and chemo this day, and my kids are coming to visit tomorrow. And, all the peaks and valleys of life. We can do it. 

But somehow we’ve been told waves are bad, you got to figure out why you have waves, you got to whack the mole, I call it whack a mole, you got to manage your stress, manage life, . And I said, I just knew, I just knew, and from I’ve just been a very happy woman to be hanging around with these people and learning from some of the teachers who knew Syd Banks personally. I’m in a Three Principles practitioner in a program now to kind of put a stamp of approval on that. And so anyway, it’s been a wonderful, a wonderful I, like I say recognition and waking up to, I always knew this was the way it was.

Alexandra: You mentioned the word stress there.

Wendy: Fill in the blank, beyond stress, beyond burnout, beyond anxiety, beyond depression, fill in the blank. Again, I think that there are circumstances and things that come up. Nobody really wants to have a cancer diagnosis.

But not every person that has a cancer diagnosis, falls into a funk and just sits there night after night, wringing their hands and in anxiety.

Some people just say, alright, well, I guess I better cut back on some work hours, and I’ve got to make room for chemotherapy. I’ve always wondered when I’d like look like when I was bald. There are some people, they get light hearted about it. And then there are other people going, I can’t lose my hair. Oh my gosh, what are they going to do with this? 

I’m not judging any of that. I’m just saying there’s a variety of experiences, a variety of ways that people can take their circumstances and so far beyond stress. Words are so inadequate as we’ve heard in the three principles, it’s so inadequate, is it literally beyond? Is it underneath? Is it beside? Is it imbued? Beyond sounds good to me. 

There’s a group in the UK, Beyond Recovery. There’s a place of inner resilience, quietness, the stuff that makes the same power that just gave me enough oxygen when I just took my last breath right now, right now, and a breathing out the same power that is able to filter in the oxygen, take out any of the germs that might be floating around in here and expel them and create the right amount of carbon dioxide to breathe out to keep me oxygenated, healthy. That same power that I don’t think about except what I am right now is at work in me to bring my mind and my heart. 

Okay, you got cancer. Okay. But you also have three children that you love. Okay. You also have, I don’t have three children. I just made that up. But, it can filter things out and bring me back to a steady state. In nursing, we call that homeostasis. So there’s a place beyond what’s going on. And it’s not to say to ignore what’s going on, or to think positively about it. Positive psychology? No, I’m just saying that whatever is coming our way we do have the ability, capacity.

And so beyond stress, beyond burnout, there’s a place sort of like somewhere over the rainbow. Again, I haven’t thought of that before today, either. But we’re bluebirds, we fly beyond the rainbow. And there’s a place and it’s always, always always there. Just like it’s always always always working to make my oxygen levels work. 

I mean, right now, I’m digesting food that I ate two or three hours ago. I’m not sitting there going, gee, I hope, I hope my gut’s working. I wonder if I’m taking out enough carbohydrates from my food? I hope so. Do you think, gee, I really hope that I’m getting enough, my kidneys are clearing out my urine. Gee, I hope I don’t have to think about that. 

And we have been, I have been, maybe you have been, enculturated through growing up in the 20/21st century, that I have to worry about every time I have an anxious or a difficult thought, oh, what does that mean? What do I have to do about that? Oh, there’s something to be done. All this, I need to follow that rabbit trail, as opposed to saying they come. And they go. 

One thing I say to my clients is, if you could look back over the next the last six months or your whole life and add up the number of things that have actually worked out the way you dreaded that they would, how many hours have any of us spent going oh, gosh, I can’t believe it. , like, right now I have a I literally have a relative that’s in some legal trouble. So how many hours? I literally haven’t spent that money in the last six months, because I now know.

What do you think? What do you think? What do you think? Calling up friends who’ve had other friends that have been involved with law law problems? I would have been asking my whole church to pray, we need a prayer service. Not to say that I haven’t I literally asked people to pray for our situation. And I literally have said, I wonder what could happen. But it’s been such a small amount of time. 

When I look back over the last six months, what it looked like six months ago was very, very dark. It has not been resolved. Where are we? March of 2024, the situation has not been resolved. And it isn’t anywhere looking as dark as it did six months ago, I could have spent hours. And I would have spent hours, days months of my life wringing my hands. But things come and they go, and just because I look at something and size it up, doesn’t mean I’ve sized it up accurately, or that things can’t change. 

There’s just always something beyond and what I have thought about worried about in the last number of months, or anybody anyone has if you feel like answering it, but how many things have you worried about that have actually materialized the the way you worried about them? I mean, when you look back and go, what a waste of time. What a wast of time. I could have had those hours back. And so today, I’ve got them. 

Do things look really real and solid and like, oh boy, this is trouble come in. Sure. And there’s also thank goodness, like an eighth of an inch of awareness. A little bit that says, Oh, you’re having a rough time right now. Look at you having a rough time. And it’s not like I talk myself out of it. Sometimes I say, Yeah, I’m having a rough time, and I’m gonna go get a chocolate bar, and I’m gonna get really mad, and I’m gonna call 10 friends.

Sometimes I’m aware but there’s a little bit of space that I cherish from knowing the principles. It’s just the awareness that this too, shall pass. It always has it always will. Every wisdom book in the world that we have access to says the same thing. And, it’s thanks to Syd Banks and the Three Principles that it’s worded in such a way that it that Lego piece just kind of dropped in.

Wendy: Yes. Helpful information in terms of me as a nurse going, you got this. You may not be able to see it right now. But you do. You’re absolutely right. It’s absolutely wonderful to be able to sit there and not be pulled in, if you will. And it’s also wonderful, as a healer. I love that word. Thank you. Not that I am the healer. A healing presence is to create an environment or a special a space, where allowing that person to verbalize cry, wring their hands, uninterrupted, deeply listening to them. In some circles in health care, they call it generous listening.

It’s been unbelievably wonderful to really hear people reach their own conclusions. Or say, Oh, maybe I should move to my sister’s because she’s got a house all on one floor. I’ve got a broken hip. Maybe I’ll just ask my sister. That’s a good idea. Now, do I know anything about her sister’s house? No. 

But if somebody’s going, Oh, my gosh, how am I going to I live alone? What am I going to do? My hip’s broken, I’m not gonna be able to climb my stairs, I’ll have to hire somebody. By listening to them. It’s a great idea. Sounds good to me. I might be able to add my two cents worth, which is when you get to your sister’s house, make sure there are no scatter rugs, because those can really trip you up when you’re on your crutches or on your walker. So get rid of the scatter rugs when your sisters might be able to add two cents. But that’s just a really easy example. But yes, to answer your question, it is a wonderful thing for health care providers to be able to know that.

Alexandra: You mentioned deep listening there. And we talked about this before we pressed record.

Wendy: Health care providers worldwide are taught to active listen. Which is to do exactly what you’re doing. Oh, good. I hear you without necessarily saying the words. I hear you. Or there’s something called mirroring. Like if somebody’s sad and crying and just go right. So let me get this right. You said that you’re worried about your stairs at your house with your broken hip? Because you live on the second your if I’ve got that right. Oh, I do have a right okay. And did I hear it right that you said that you have a sister who has a Oh, okay. 

Active listening is literally remembering, recalling, mirroring. It’s a wonderful tool. And what seems to be the golden ticket when it comes to listening is clearing my mind and as the listener to say, I want to see the world as this person sees it. I want to feel the world as this person feels it. So I’m just going to literally just listen. And it doesn’t mean it hurts. But I don’t have to remember what they’re saying. I don’t have to, I just have this sense of interest, and curiosity, and patience. And let the person just go. 

It really levels the playing field. A wonderful person in the world called Rachel Naomi Remen. She’s a physician, and she’s in her mid to late 80s now, but she’s written some wonderful books, and she’s written some really stellar bits about the boat helping and fixing while they come from a good place. And that’s what doctors and nurses, and health and social workers and psychologists do, we want to help and we want to fix. There’s a little bit of a power imbalance there. I’m a helper, I’m a fixer. I’m in a good place, you’re in a very upsetting place, and you need my help. I want to go in there and fix it. 

When we listen from that place of no judgment. And I don’t mean judgment, like, oh, you’re a bad person, but judgment meaning Oh, I know what you mean. Oh, I’m adding one plus one equals two. I know. I know. Yeah. The broken hip. Yeah. Just listen, just listen. It’s very, very different than active listening. It’s like 180 degrees different than active listening.

Alexandra: I love that description. That’s great. I had an experience recently of listening to someone. I was trying, honestly trying to practice just having a calm, quiet mind. And this person had a tiny little problem. I don’t even remember what it was. And as I sat and listened, she worked her way around to the solution. She had come to me with a question, and I just stayed quiet and calm. 

Wendy: And did she say Oh, thank you so much. You help me so much. But yet, we do do something because it’s vastly different. Can you think of the last time that somebody listened to you? And just and they didn’t leave? 

We know what it feels like. Everybody knows what it feels like to really have somebody listening to them. And we know what it’s like to have somebody distracted. Like they go look at their phone. Oh, what? I’m sorry, what did you say? We know what that feels like. And so you can say, I didn’t do anything. You arrived at this conclusion yourself. Very true. 

That’s why I have a program with a colleague, Laurie Carpenos. I think she’s been on your podcast before. The Gift of Deep Listening. It is a gift to give. And when you’ve given it and you’re the listener, there is something magical that does happen in that space, that third space, that interplay between two human beings, that you walk away feeling there’s something really special in it. 

So yeah, there is a big difference between the two. That’s a great example that your client or whatever, had that experience with you and and you look back and you go, I didn’t really say anything. You figure that out yourself. How many coaches would have done that not said, All right. This is what we need to do. You need to meditate, take two deep breaths and call me in the morning or whatever. Right? Give them a list.

Things like, okay, let’s make a checklist, the good column and a bad column. And there’s lots of tricks and tools that have their place sometimes and have worked in the past. But there’s something really valuable about the Three Principles. Knowing that we’re already uniquely able to live in this world that we live in. And when some other person is able to listen to us and hear us. We get to realize that again, ourselves and pick up our mat and walk.

Wendy: I haven’t worked with a group of nurses yet. The people that have taken the class deep listening, read the description, and go, Oh, I’m interested in that. So they’re already coming prepared with an interest in learning more about that.

What I can say, that I have seen over time, is that people are a bit gobsmacked and how simple it is, and how much they gained from it on both sides. When you’re in a class or in a workshop, go off and listen to another person for five minutes and let them listen to you for five minutes. And the subject is your favorite book, it’s something a bit contrived. But even in that, as opposed to like, I’m in a muddle, something’s really upsetting, I’m going to call my best friend, I’m just going to ask her if she can just listen to me.

I’m recalling my own stepson who’s 35 years old now. But I remember when he was 17, he was sitting in my dining room saying, I can’t even hear myself think, I can’t even hear myself think. I didn’t know the Principles then. But I’m like, That makes a lot of sense. And I remember my heart going up to him, I wish I could help you quiet your mind so that you could hear yourself, because he was just full of all these different voices, teachers and mom and dad and stepmom.

If he’s 17, and he knew the inside was the direction. So the pushback is not really because again, people kind of self select in here. I’m curious when we introduce these things to versus and so forth. And there’s a number of health care providers in the Three Principles world who are on board and they get it. They know what it’s like to listen to their patients or listen at work, listen to their colleagues. Listen to their boss. A beautiful Northstar to follow.

I’m looking forward to figure out how much pushback but I can imagine with anybody you think you don’t have the time? And I don’t know how much time do you really need to listen to somebody before they can reach a conclusion? Hours? Days? 

I was just reading The Missing Link before we got on the call. And one thought, you don’t have to be in therapy 42 years to get well, or to release yourself from mental strain or difficulty. It’s just one thought. I remember in my early days of the Principles, my issue was, what is the one thought? What is the thought? I didn’t realize it was counting. I thought he was giving content. Like it’s just one thought, and I’m not telling you what it is you’re gonna have to figure it out. And I was like, oh that’s what they mean. My one thought, Okay, I got it.

Alexandra: It occurs to me, too, that when we know that that place of peace exists within us, we don’t need 15 minutes to quiet our mind down in order to listen.

Wendy: And then it’s sort of like, wow, it’s always been there. You mean I don’t have to count all my oxygen molecules? Oh, it’s always been there. My lungs have always operated this way. Ever since I was born, I’m 65. Now, I didn’t realize, Wow, what a relief, I have a lot more time in my day now that I know what I have to kind of oxygen molecules. I mean, to me, it’s very similar to that, like, we really don’t have to be quite so revved up, whack a mole, managing stress, scanning the horizon, counting the beans, we can literally just kind of sit back and go. My mind and my heart and my body and my soul know how to recalibrate. But I keep overriding the system.

I’ve been taught since I was little to override the system. Western cultures have been taught to override the system. I think that there are probably a lot of I don’t know, what’s the right term these days developing nations or whatever. People who don’t? I don’t know, people who live differently than I do. Who are like, yeah, yeah, don’t worry. They don’t worry about a lot of these things. The internet stuff. What people all over the world. Just don’t? Don’t think like this. Don’t worry about these kinds of things, don’t get wrapped up by these kinds of things.

Alexandra: Exactly. We’re coming close to the end of our time together.

Wendy: That’s a really good question. I don’t think so I really have loved the way this conversation was very organic. I really appreciate that when people share their experiences with one another, like you shared your experience with coaching somebody else, I shared my experience I’ve got as a nurse, there’s something really restorative and connecting. About coming from that place, sharing life in life, person and in person. 

Versus let me tell you about the last five courses that I’ve taken in the last eight books I’ve read about Three Principles. And I want to share some data points with you and some studies. And so I guess that would be something I would want to share with people is to really take full advantage every time you can of being with another human being in the grocery store line, at the bank. In your home. Online. There’s so such tremendous beauty in all human beings. I’m reading the book by Jacqueline hollows called…

Wendy: So good. So good. We’re talking about hardcore, locked up. For many, many years, criminals in the United Kingdom. Jacqueline Hollows is able to just go, aren’t they just lovely? Aren’t they just the yummiest person? Can’t you just see how tender hearted and sweet they are? 

I don’t know if everybody could see that. It’s just an extreme example. So I’m not walking around with people who are in prison uniforms and carrying billy clubs. But sometimes I can say I am from the United States of America. I’ll let that just sit there like that. Just like that. 

We’re in weird weird times. And I well, actually in Canada, too. I know that there’s a little bit of interesting, trying to stay balanced as a citizen in Canada and United States. I’m 65. I don’t remember being mad at people before. And I feel you shouldn’t think like that. You shouldn’t vote like that. Where did that come from? 

If I can apply that. Remember, wings of an angel. Prisoners, like everyone is a beautiful example of divine engineering. You just sit with people and be with people and sharing just real stuff. And I mean, we didn’t go deep like when I say real stuff, I don’t mean, like the most deeply personal things, we just shared our experience of living as women wherever we lived. 

It doesn’t take much. I encourage people to really trust that human beings are pretty amazing and cool. And have a listen. And trust that they’re beautifully made from the inside out.

Alexandra: Wow, that’s beautiful. Thank you, Wendy. That’s lovely. 

Wendy: The next one is actually going to be a weekend one, we’re calling it Five Hours for the Gift of Deep Listening. So it’s a weekend coming up – April 5 through 7, 2024. Which again, we’re going to be watching this a year from now it won’t be but that’s okay. 

A great place to find me is on my website. It’s forwardwithwendy.com. And Lori and I do and you’ll see on the page different programs that we have. I think that’s probably the best place

Alexandra: I will put links in the show notes as well, to those things. Thank you so much for being with me here today. I really appreciate it.

Wendy: It was lovely. Take care.

Featured image photo by Juan Davila on Unsplash

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