We were lucky to catch up with Katy Troy recently and have shared our conversation below.

Katy, appreciate you joining us today. Was there a defining moment in your professional career? A moment that changed the trajectory of your career?

My career as a holistic personal development coach was built upon a compilation of a few life-altering experiences that changed the way I relate with myself and the way I relate to the world.

When I was faced with the reality that my own personal distress was not allowing me to fully serve my client base, I had to go on a journey to learn how to navigate my inner and outer worlds so I could build the kind of practice that was rooted in clarity, wisdom and intuitive alignment. This is when my career really started to feel purposeful and I could have never imagined that, what began as pain and loss, would lead me to greater clarity and fulfillment in my professional career.

While I was finishing my education hours for hypnotherapy, coaching and holistic nutrition, I began to build my practice centered around working with pregnant women who could benefit from intuitive alignment, stress coping skills and individualized care. During my own pregnancy, I found myself unprepared for the old wounds and stressors that were coming up. Although I had some amazing support, I didn’t have a lot of tools to support myself during that specific time period. I completed my clinical hypnotherapy training hours working with pregnant women and was actively building my practice around services specifically for relieving stress and building intuitive awareness during pregnancy.

During my last 6 months of school, I was diagnosed with a rare condition that leads to ovarian cancer and forms borderline cancerous ovarian tumors. I had my first surgery in June of 2017 and moved forward believing I could monitor the condition and grow our family. Unfortunately, within a couple of months, my cancer levels went back up, new spots and cancer cells were found, and, sooner than anticipated, I was faced with having a total hysterectomy. I was 33 with a 3-year-old son. Because of the type of cancer, I was not able to take hormonal support and went through an intense surgical menopause.

This experience left me with a life I wasn’t expecting. I felt that I lost my body autonomy and my identity. Everyone I knew was just starting their families, menopause was so far from their minds. My body was recovering from back-to-back surgeries and adjusting to not having a reproductive system and intense hormonal changes. My body changed, I gained weight, my joints ached, physical activity was harder, I felt out of balance and in pain, emotionally and physically. I didn’t feel like myself. As I was anticipating growing my own practice of supporting pregnant women, I found myself in deep grief over losing my own ability to become pregnant and losing my body autonomy.

It was a bit of a long road, but I changed course and began to focus on worth, value and offering coaching and hypnosis services that are aligned with, not changing who we are, but compassion and curiosity, so that we can create the life we really want. I love supporting my clients through creating and realizing their desires and goals, setting healthy boundaries, building confidence and aligning with their own intuition while allowing that inner wisdom to guide them forward.

I still have sadness over the loss that I experienced. But my life is full and happy. I am so grateful and lucky to have the most amazing kid, husband, friends and family. I know myself, that has been my greatest strength and my biggest lesson. Confidence didn’t come from achievement, proving myself or even overcoming pain. It came from integration, trust, balance and grace. Now, I have the privilege of witnessing others in their own growth, offering guidance and tools to create and experience the life they crave.

I have come to understand that my life is not filled with blocks and pain, it may contain those, but it is actually filled with opportunities and enjoyment. This is all of us. It takes time and reflection, and I won’t pretend that I have it all figured out! But, I do have curiosity, patience and trust. I know that focusing on what I want to experience allows it to happen. I know that pretending my pain and hardships don’t exist won’t make them go away, but I have learned to grow with them, not in spite of them.

When the trajectory of our life changes drastically, we may want to have all the answers so that we know how to move forward. But we can’t decide how we will grow from our wounds while we are experiencing them, we have to be patient and see how we will grow. If we get stuck on figuring it all out, we may not have a chance to pause to see the big picture and allow our new path to unfold. I had to learn how to trust, to be patient, to know what I wanted to experience in my life, and then allow it to unfold in ways I would have never imagined. I love the work I do now because I get to support others in growing their confidence and see them experience their dreams through self-discovery. Instead of fixing or solving, we can move from worth and value and experience joy and fulfillment along the way. Because we are all worthy of that.

Katy, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

My name is Katy Troy and I am a holistic personal development coach and founder of Rock Rose Solutions, LLC. I offer a holistic approach to self discovery and personal development work that is intended to bring about life path clarity, professional advancement and personal fulfillment.

I have been in the holistic wellness field for 15 years and found myself feeling frustrated with our industry’s focus on self improvement, identifying problems and naming their solutions. Although this is an important aspect of holistic health, my personal journey has led me to focus on understanding why we constantly feel we need to change and improve ourselves. What causes us to always look for the best diet, supplement, exercise, meditation, practitioner? When we are stuck in the constant cycle of healing, are we giving ourselves a chance to fully appreciate and experience life? I went on a mission to learn how we can accept that there are always going to be improvements that can happen, while also learning how to embrace ourselves fully as we are right now.

I truly believe that real self acceptance is the way forward. This isn’t about giving up or not facing those things that are keeping us stuck, unhappy and unhealthy, but rather giving in to who we are and approaching our own personal journey with curiosity, compassion and excitement.

My work isn’t for everyone. It is for individuals who are ready to walk into the unknown and approach life in a new way. Although I have a lot of tools, techniques, education and resources, I am not in the practice of fixing. I love to help individuals on their own journey, learning to trust themselves and listen to their own inner wisdom; allowing their intuition to guide them forward.

It sounds simple in theory, but we have been conditioned to not trust ourselves, and it takes some work to get back to that aligned and trusting place that we were born with. Consider the last time you had an ailment or problem, did you automatically go within or did you look outside yourself for the answer? How often do you look outside yourself for answers? What would it be like to be able to feel calm and trusting in every situation, even when the answer or outcome is unclear or scary?

Specifically, I work with individuals who are feeling like they are running out of time in their life and generally frustrated. They want to accomplish more, get further in their career or personal life, but they feel like they are unable to create the life that they want. Maybe they feel like it isn’t possible, or that they need to prove or change themselves first, or maybe they just have no idea where to start. That is where I come in! I love to help individuals clarify and validate their goals, move through the stagnation and the obstacles that seem to be in their way, and create a new path towards the life they want to live.

I have training and certifications in holistic and psychological nutrition, hypnotherapy, life coaching, sensation processing and energy clearing. I also utilize my background in social justice, feminist theory, public policy and crisis intervention to create an empowered approach to personal development work.

I feel the most proud when I see my clients succeeding in their careers and finding fulfillment in their personal lives. Growth that is rooted in inner wisdom may take longer, it may not look like what we are taught growth is supposed to look like, but it is real and lasting. This is not quick fix work, there are no tricks or perfect plans, you actually hold the answers to your own path, you may have just forgotten how to listen to yourself.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

A lesson that I was taught in school, and heard time and time again from other practitioners in similar fields to my own, was “You have to have your offer and business plan firm, before starting.” This lesson may certainly apply to some businesses, but I found that this lesson created more stagnation than fluidity in building my own practice. With this lesson in mind, I felt that I had to make sure I knew exactly what I was doing and had a perfect way to market and present myself and my services before I could begin. I felt really stuck in ‘getting it right’ before I presented myself to the world. Now, I see that I was actually inhibiting my own growth. As I was so firm in knowing my marketing, my mission, my plan, I was less able to be open to what sparked my own joy and inspired growth. I realized that I might get stuck in being aligned with my plan rather than what was actually important. Just as we all grow and change, my own practice and approach to the work I do does as well. I learned that it is less about your mission statement and more about what you are actually offering and the results that come from that work. Having a mission and a goal is important, but making it tight, clean and inflexible left me having to do some extra work to break down those walls and start something new. It may feel scary and a bit unorganized to go more organically, but I suggest giving into the unknown a bit. You get to experience some amazing opportunities on that path!

Training and knowledge matter of course, but beyond that what do you think matters most in terms of succeeding in your field?

In holistic self development and wellness work, you can learn all the tools, resources and approaches in the world, but if you are only focused on the problems that need to be fixed, you may not be offering enough energy to the goals you are working to achieve. Healing is a lifelong process, and it can be daunting to think about that sometimes as it’s hard work! It may feel that we have to get through and process those wounds before we can experience our goals, but that is not the truth. We are not problems to be fixed. The exact body, mind and spirit you are today is the same body, mind and spirit you will be when you are experiencing your goals and big dreams. You can have the right diet, routine, meditation, exercise, tools, support, but if you aren’t able to give in a bit, you may find yourself stuck and feeding the energy of self improvement rather than self satisfaction and joy. Be curious, be open to change and move away from problem solving and fixing. Allowing for your focus to be centered around your goals, instead of your blocks, allows for those big dreams and desires to become realized and experienced.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.katytroy.com
• Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/katy-troy-6411a7268
• Other: womens-collective.com