We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Kim Locke a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Kim, appreciate you joining us today. Can you talk to us about a risk you’ve taken – walk us through the story?
There is risk in everything we do. When we stay in our comfort zone, we risk not growing or feeling fulfilled in some way. When we step outside of our comfort zone, we risk falling, failing, judgement, and ultimately being vulnerable and unprotected. The question with any of it is, what is the risk verses the reward?
In the first 10 years of my career, I learned everything I could about SAAS professional services and implementation, building my way up to senior individual contributor roles. I always got great feedback from customers and superiors. From the outside, I was high functioning, could say yes to taking on all of the challenges we faced and keep charging forward. I wore the golden handcuffs of a wonderful career with salary and health benefits.
Behind the curtain, I was burning out. The expectations I had for myself started to rise as I began working later and on weekends to meet the work demand and please everyone around me. I wasn’t taking care of myself with breaks, nutrition, hydration, or self care. My work started coming home with me into my conversations with my husband and friends which felt unsatisfying and took away from my relationships.
One day I noticed my heart rate at 120 bpm while I made my coffee in my pjs before work. My anxiety got to a level where it was affecting my health and something needed to change.
I felt lost in the feelings of overwhelm and I needed support to understand what to do next. The first risk I took was signing up for an immersive personal work retreat. It was scary to walk into something uncertain when I was already unsure of myself and I felt dedicated to prioritize my health. After the first retreat, I realized so many things.
1. I’m ok and I was just severely stressed. Self-compassion and nervous system regulation brought me back to my best self.
2. My anxiety came from a deep fear that I was not enough and I had to prove my value through work.
3. I realized that connection was the most important thing in my life. Connection to myself and the people around me. I wanted to change my career to being of service to people in the way the leaders on retreat had been for me.
The next 7 years brought me on a personal – work journey that transformed my life. I kept courageously peeling back the layers of limiting beliefs that held me back and with mentorship from my now Business Partner, Taylor White Moffitt, I kept stepping towards being of service to others. I started a podcast, got a coaching certification, started teaching free yoga and leading free groups that eventually turned into leading personal-work workshops and assisting retreats like the one I had been on with Humanity Shared.
I eventually became an Embodiment Coach and stepped into co-ownership of Humanity Shared in May of 2024 with the goal of expanding this work to more people. The risk was taking the golden handcuffs off to experience the intensely beautiful feeling of fully living in alignment with my self-made purpose and trusting myself that I could make it work. It was like jumping off a cliff when I quit my tech job. Free falling into the uncertainty of what was next and rooting into believing that I have something to offer and I would always regret it if I didn’t try.
The outcome – more peace and ease as well as the most challenging job I have ever had. I feel more confident, healthy, and content than I ever have, even with the new challenges. I am finding my legs as a business owner as learn to wear many hats. I have to dig into my belief of myself more than ever and lean on those who I depend on for support like my husband and colleagues. My nervous system feels so much more regulated. I am so grateful and I lead a richer life filled with moments of connection to myself and others.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
Humanity Shared offers immersive personal-work experiences that help you show up as your best self. Take my story as an example. I showed up on retreat depleted from working in overdrive. While I was high-functioning and seemingly very successful, I had patterns of people pleasing, self-aggression, and disconnection from myself and the people around me due to a cloud of anxiety. After retreat I had clarity, purpose, and practices to help me recognize my patterns and try a new way.
So many people that come on an immersive retreat or take our Embodied Coaching program have a similar experience. They know something feels off. Something feels unfulfilling, overwhelming, or like it’s missing. They are not completely satisfied with the way life is and so they try something new. They take a risk.
The word that gets used most often for the personal-work we do is “transformational.” It is transformational not because of the leaders, the content, the venues, the food – although that is all very impactful – it is transformational because they do the work of coming home to themselves. They recognize what is holding them back. They fully participate in the experience and bring tools and practices home to help them move through life with more clarity and connection working with their fear to go after what they want in their lives. They are the secret and they empower themselves by fully engaging and participating in their lives with intentionality and courage.
Our offerings are different because we prioritize the participant’s embodied experience of the material. It is less conceptual. We don’t jump up and say we have it all figured out and here are the 5 easy steps to memorize. We know the power of practice over perfection, of experience over concept, and of embodiment over being lost in thought. We help people get out of their head thinking that there is something to memorize and into the wisdom of their own intuition so they can make their own empowered decisions to get what they need and want in their lives.
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
I’ve had to unlearn that perfection equals success. And to be more honest, I have had to learn that perfectionism is a self-protection mechanism to be liked by others and feel like I am enough. Instead I am practicing living and working with intentionality, kindness, and authenticity. I am offering what I have to offer and doing my best to show up each day with a regulated nervous system, taking risks and making mistakes, cleaning up and making repairs whenever necessary with courageous conversations and truth telling. Perfection does not exist. Self-compassion has taken it’s place and it is giving me everything self-improvement promised.
Have you ever had to pivot?
Pivoting feels like an everyday part of life. When I wake up, I listen to myself and my needs before my feet hit the floor. I use my intuition as a barometer for what the day needs to hold. If I wake up energized, I am at my workout first thing before stepping into the work day. If I wake up anxious, I greet the anxiety and check in with what I need to tend to it. Is it a check in with my husband, a hard conversation with a colleague, a cancelled meeting or personal event to make more space?
I pivot all day everyday so that I can move through my life with the most clarity and ease I can muster, clearing off the windshield daily so I can see clearly and take right aim and action for whatever it is.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.humanityshared.com
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/humanityshared
- Linkedin: https://www.instagram.com/humanityshared/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_cYqelSuZK2aGdASo24NMA
Image Credits
Branded Beet