Mindful Chat with Debbie Lyn Toomey The Happiness Specialist

Debbie is a recovered burnout nurse who is passionate about empowering healthcare professionals with practical and proven tools that can strengthen their resilience. Debbie is the author of The Happiness Result. 

Contact information
By email: debbielyn@HealthandHappinessSpecialist.com

Social links:

Website: HealthandHappinessSpecialist.com

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/debbielyntoomey/

Instagram – UHJDebbieLyn

Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/healthandhappinessspecialist

Twitter - @UHJDebbielyn

Check Her book The Happiness Result ONLINE 
Amazon HERE 👉https://amzn.to/3uxLQbX

Self Care & Resilience  Retreat -
https://learn.healthandhappinessspecialist.com/nurse-resilience-training?r_done=1


Dr. Damaris G. is an Integrative Doctor of Nurse Practice Family Nurse Practioner Mom, Veteran,. BC Family Nurse Practioner & Holistic Integrative health, Studies Functional Medicine
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Transcript

Damaris Grossmann: 0:24

Hi, how are you? This is Damaris Grossmann doctor, Family Nurse practice and integrative health practitioner. Today we are on a podcast interviewing Debbie Lim. To me, she is an amazing woman, her, she has recovered. She is what they call Debbie is the recovered burnout nurse who is passionate about empowering healthcare professionals with a practical and proven tools that she can strengthen them with resiliency. Debbie is an author of the happiness result. She has an amazing website called the health and happiness specialists. So really, she is the happiness specialist. So I wanted to, you know, introduce you to Debbie to me, and she will tell you more about herself. She sounds absolutely amazing. I got to just chat with her for a few minutes. And I can't wait to learn more. So hi, Debbie. Thanks for kind of joining in on this mindfully integrative podcast and

Unknown: 1:25

kind of

Damaris Grossmann: 1:27

talk to me about how are you doing today? First off, and then let's get into why do you think you're a little bit more mindfully integrative?

Debbie Lyn: 1:36

Oh, great. Well, first of all, thank you so much for having me be on your podcast. And I was just sharing with you how I enjoyed listening to the other podcasts that you've been doing and just feeling really inspired, that there are other thought leaders out there and with a nursing background, who is out there really sharing their knowledge of the aspect of looking at health as a mind body spirit? To answer your question about how I'm doing today, I'm going to tell you, I feel grateful, I am very, very grateful. It's I I'm a nurse by trade. And I also have a company ultimate healing journey. But I'm also a mom of three boys happily married for over 30 years, and also what people would call in the sandwich generation. So I have my parents who are aging, and they live a few minutes away from me and being able to be there for them has been such a pleasure and a privilege. So I'm grateful I'm very grateful. Because right now at this very present moment, everybody that I love most in this world is alive, healthy. And well.

Damaris Grossmann: 2:56

That's, that's so important. I mean, I granted, I still feel grateful. This past year, my father actually had passed away, but you know, overall, I still feel very grateful because I have my mom and my other family and and through all of this suffering and negativity, I was able to spend a birth of my baby boy and you know, this year with my family. So you know, you have to like those small things a small, like, major things that may have come up you might have gone. Alright, I grateful is a wonderful way of putting it. So one, how did we well, we met through the song seal group. But um, in general, I know we had messaged each other and you had kind of resonated with mindfulness being mindfully integrative. But what does, um, would be one kind of quote or something for you that resonates in the world of like, your happiness specialist, or you're saying your your full business name is the ultimate?

Debbie Lyn: 3:58

Yeah, so my company, the name, his ultimate healing journey, ultimate healing, and my website is health and happiness specialists calm. And I use that website because I can call myself a health and happiness specialist. And I use that I use happiness as a way to remind people that health is nothing without happiness. And certainly I've taken care of lots of healthy looking people, as a nurse, but feel like they do those some of those people unfortunately felt empty inside. And they're not able to really enjoy how gifted and how special and what they had in life. So that's when I realized that happiness is really so important. It's integral to our health. And certainly, there's a lot of different positive psychology studies now that reveal that happiness is something that is a skill, it can be learned. And yeah, and it can be and it can help us live a long and happy, fulfilled life.

Damaris Grossmann: 5:15

I think that you know that in itself just even talking though about happiness or admit like being aware What the negative parts and kind of, you know, stead of, you know, emphasizing all that negative kind of bringing out more of that positive thinking, it's, it's needed, you know, we need, we need more of you in this world because there's a lot of, you know, suffering right now. And people need to kind of redirect that. Especially, is there a, someone in your life that or that you admire or that you find that has given you some inspiration, or even just a quote that's kind of inspired you to kind of get through your work day or your work week?

Debbie Lyn: 5:57

All this, so many people that I've met in my life? Thank goodness, I am so grateful. And I will, you might hear me keep saying grateful, because

Damaris Grossmann: 6:11

I say grateful and blessed a lot. Oh, yeah.

Unknown: 6:13

You know, I

Damaris Grossmann: 6:13

feel very lucky. And, yeah,

Debbie Lyn: 6:17

it's actually it's a it's just like happiness is a science, gratitude is also a science as well as also a character strength. And that happens to be my top strength. So and I've used gratitude in different areas and my life that's helped me become more resilient. But to answer your question, I'm in my office right now, and in front of me is one of the is a picture of Einstein. And I believe he is one of the most gifted person ever, in the history of man to exist. And one of his quotes, and I love a lot of his quotes, one of his quotes that I love is imagination is more important than knowledge. And, for one, the first read that quote, that was said by him, and you know, everybody thinks he's the most brilliant person, you know, intelligent, but for him to be so in tune, and so intuitive enough to know that imagination outweighs knowledge is just, it just made me think, Oh, my gosh, he there is a deeper level of brilliance in him that nobody can really appreciate.

Damaris Grossmann: 7:27

Yes, I mean, I feel like he has his his his thought process is beyond even what majority of us can even comprehend. Right? So he's no, it's almost like he knew, I guess in the Socrates really, it's like these, there's certain individuals in the in the world that have just they know more than, you know, we can even comprehend or understand. I mean, I don't know what your faith is, or if you have a strong faith, and that in itself can also be you know, a factor, you know, a help. I believe that to, you know, a spiritualist, whether it's a faith of an organized or a very spiritual pneus can help. So tell me a little bit more about your story of how you kind of came into being, you know, a little bit about your nursing background, and then kind of where, how it got you into this, you know, health and happiness specialist, because I know not everyone decides, you know, what, I'm going to go into this business, why this business? What got you to where you are, I know, you're very grateful for your family, you were saying and, and the people that have kind of directed you, how did you come to where you're at

Debbie Lyn: 8:33

now? So that's always I love that question. And it's so loaded. Okay. Or

Damaris Grossmann: 8:41

how about how about, we can just start up? How did you get into like, to decide to do this business? Yeah. You know, that kind of got you in integrative?

Debbie Lyn: 8:50

Definitely. So I, I'm a first generation Filipina here and yeah, so my, on my mother's side of the family, are pharmacists and doctors and my grandfather, my mother's father, he was a pharmacist, but also a healer. He, and were more Catholic, but I'm also Yeah, so what's impressive is not only did he believes in God, but also believe in other forces in the universe, other spiritual practices that can enhance other people's health. And so I got a lot of my inspiration through my grandfather and my mother's side. He was open to

Damaris Grossmann: 9:36

a lot of things. That's awesome.

Debbie Lyn: 9:37

Yes, he was just so open and just remembering different times when, you know, he would, you know, go to other people's home to help them with spiritual healing or energy healing. energy healing. Yeah,

Unknown: 9:51

yes.

Damaris Grossmann: 9:53

And different. Yes.

Unknown: 9:54

Yes. Very easy, or even.

Damaris Grossmann: 9:57

What is it like the key key, john key?

Unknown: 10:00

There's my other key difference? Yeah.

Debbie Lyn: 10:04

And even using herbals preparation, and him being a pharmacist and using pharmaceuticals when indicated, so I started learning.

Damaris Grossmann: 10:13

He was doing an integrative kind of thing. Yes.

Debbie Lyn: 10:15

Oh, that's cool. That's really cool. Yeah. So that's the inspiration and I always, I always felt that you know, I want to do so. Something like that I, I felt like my grandfather really understood what health and what balance is and how healing can occur by incorporating the mind body spirits. And so not wanting to stay in school for such a long time I decided not to become a

Unknown: 10:45

doctor.

Damaris Grossmann: 10:48

Yeah. It's okay. But if you don't like it, you don't need it, you know, there's plenty of things that you can make a difference.

Unknown: 10:56

At a young age, I

Debbie Lyn: 10:57

just wanted, in a way, I was impatient, I wanted to learn how to help people, and do it right away. So I went into nursing. Yeah. But as a nurse of over 30 years, I discovered, you know, what I, you know, these people who I've been treating or helping to take care of keep coming back with stress related ailments. So there's something more decided, as I shared with you that they're, you know, taking care of patients who look very healthy. But inside there were empty. I made it made me realize there's something more that these people can benefit from, and they're not getting it completely at the bedside. Because at the bedside, as you know, we just treat the presenting symptoms, right.

Damaris Grossmann: 11:40

And then presenting disease instead of looking at the entire picture. And or we only have an X amount of time with him, right? If we're especially if we're overloaded. So then we're stuck. And you know, all right, well, we are just putting a bandaid on it again.

Debbie Lyn: 11:54

Yep. And there's a lot of band aids to be had, right. But things are deep. And so I it led me to a path of learning different types of modalities like Reiki and homeopathy and herbs and aroma therapy, positive psychology, mindfulness, all these different practices that when you kind of put them together all are so integral and how we can help ourselves, right? Because it's important for me as somebody who steps into the realm of, you know, trying to train and inspire people about the field of integrative health, resilience, right? informed care, it's so important for me to really know who I am and how to take care of myself. So I could walk my talk,

Damaris Grossmann: 12:43

is that right? Oh, my gosh, that makes so much I've really loved that you're saying kind of walk your talk and kind of, you have to go and look at your center, you center Gil, and then you go forward. And I feel that even just it's like, if I'm not centered, and I'm not practicing my health stuff, then I can't revisit it. Like I cannot bring it out into the world. And I feel that exactly in that way. I agree completely.

Unknown: 13:07

Definitely.

Debbie Lyn: 13:07

I always say, when I'm in front of, you know, people, when I'm presenting or my workshops, I'm a work in progress.

Damaris Grossmann: 13:17

Working. Yeah, that's I mean, that sounds I mean, but nobody's perfect, right? You know, you're you're working progress. But you're, you're, you're on the right track. And I think you're caught your consciousness is a little bit more bare, open than maybe other people, but you're trying to get there for other people, you're trying to expand them more.

Debbie Lyn: 13:34

Exactly. Just like with mindfulness, they say it's a practice, if you just 101 meditation is not going to cut it, you know, you need lots of different approaches to meditating to be able to kind of help you become more self aware.

Damaris Grossmann: 13:47

Right? No, no, absolutely. I mean, and have you been going to so with your speaking and seeing patients, and then with your business? Have you been going to different directly with nursing and healthcare professionals? Or have you been going with directly to patients are a little bit of both?

Debbie Lyn: 14:06

A little bit of both. So my when I first started my company, it was more towards helping professionals for as far as stress management, using stress management as a way to really introduce what mindfulness is what the gratitude practices, because back then, it was really integrative wellness, health and wellness is just as a relatively new term and it is easy to introduce something like that may not be well understood, but stress management, everybody understands what that is. Yeah, it's just applying or teaching different tools is the way I did it, but I have done programs for kids. I've got a wonderful

Unknown: 14:52

Yeah, yeah, it's really

Debbie Lyn: 14:55

it's a beautiful challenge, because it allows me to pick and choose Thus, the my strengths of fun and play to be to be able to teach young kids and so people as young as 990 years old, you know, all these different practices. So it's it's allowed me to really stretch my teaching skills and chaining skill. So it's been a great, great job. Opportunity

Damaris Grossmann: 15:24

Have you would have what group Have you enjoyed teaching the most? I love helping and not even not just teaching, or like kind of is it just been more impactful or everyone has, each one is different.

Debbie Lyn: 15:37

Each one is different. And it I it to each one's different. I'm besides being a presenter, I also do laughter yoga.

Unknown: 15:52

So

Debbie Lyn: 15:53

I love doing laughter yoga, and I find this form of yoga as a way to is a great way to reach those who do not speak the language of English. So last week, I did laughter yoga for a group of Chinese seniors and professionals. And they just we had such an amazing time. It's so neat.

Damaris Grossmann: 16:16

To see we're able to connect even without, without a language barrier.

Debbie Lyn: 16:20

It's wonderful. So it's using, again, different forms of practices that can help people reach it get into a place of feeling whole. And, and complete at that moment, because I again, it's a practice, it's a work in progress. Hmm. I love that I

Damaris Grossmann: 16:40

love that you're putting another element I mean, and this whole podcast I came up with is because of like, different elements of integrative health, different elements of things to make someone feel a little bit more, whether it's happiness, you know, whether it's smiling, whether it's the being intuitive laughter yoga sounds just like what a lot of people need right now. So you need to bring that out more. I think people are not laughing enough. And we need more of that. And in overall from like, the last, have you noticed for yourself the last like, with your business? Or, you know, have you enjoyed doing this so much more? Do you feel more fulfilled? Than you had when you were in nursing? Or is it just a little bit? Just it's different? But do you find that you're doing this more and making it more of an impact?

Debbie Lyn: 17:34

That's a great question. So I right now, I feel like through my company, I'm doing the big w work the work, because it's I'm reaching people in my way, in the way that I feel is going to help them remember one or two things that they got from me, I can't expect them to remember everything, but if they can borrow or use something that they learned from me and have that shift their life in a positive direction, I feel like you know, I've done, you know, part of my work here. So definitely, definitely through the my company and the way I've been able to just be able to train people. And the, my book, The happiness result is I wrote that for women over 30 and up just a way for them to be able to find a way to be authentic and use happiness skills to help them live their best lives. And what surprised me is there's a high school in New Hampshire, Pelham High School. And they created a course an elective course called managing the mind, and they're using my book.

Damaris Grossmann: 18:47

That's awesome. That's amazing. I have to check it out. I

Unknown: 18:50

can't read it.

Damaris Grossmann: 18:51

I didn't get to read it yet. So but I can't wait to listen. Oh,

Debbie Lyn: 18:55

thank you. So it's just that was I did not even see that coming. You know, it was just a divine type of a process that, you know, a high school, high school kids are using my book and it's been each chapter helps them is helping them work through what it is that they're going through it you know, wherever they're at, in real life. This is according to the teacher who was teaching the who's been teaching the course for three years now, they bought more books this year because of COVID. But she just tells me that, you know, each chapter seems to benefit and, and help the students with whatever they're working with or going through in our life. So that's so cool.

Damaris Grossmann: 19:38

I mean, you're you're impacting people that you don't even realize in some manner and, and I think that's what it is, like, you're you're obviously following the purpose of where you're, you know, you're supposed to be and you're making, you know, you're doing what you need to be doing, even though if it may, every little bit me is you're kind of turning that needle in the right direction, right. And that's, you're shifting, like you said to different individuals. It's just sounds beautiful. I anyway, like, I feel like for me with a lot of, you know, one, whether it's patients or friends or even just family, like if I impact them in one thing, and one thing that they they come out of what I said or something, and they're like,

Unknown: 20:17

Oh yeah, that's

Damaris Grossmann: 20:17

right. You did talk about that and you're like, and you know, and for me, it's it was It started for internally, right and then it now you brought it out. And so you have a book that, you know, you're going to impact many people. So listeners get that, you know, if you're on the video or listening, you know, check out her book and and you have a plenty of ways I'm going to put your all your contact information for people to reach out to you. Before you go, you know, let's discuss one more kind of, do you have a story that you want to, or you have just obviously a patient per se, or, but anything that you'd like to discuss that kind of was a very memorable moment in your recent work that, you know, for me at emanate, maybe sometimes you cry, you know, it's like, you're talking about happiness, but did some of the, when you did help some of these people have you found them to come to you and actually start crying in tears of joy, like because you've made such an impact to them?

Debbie Lyn: 21:24

Well, you know what, what's raw and what comes to mind immediately is, yesterday, my my father had surgery. And one of the nurses in the that attended my self care and resiliency training two years ago, happened to be taking care of him. And she was nervous because she was orienting to the role and she was taking care of my dad. And then she tells me, she said, You know what, I know, through your training, I have most of my resiliency toolkit, I'm going to use all the skills that you've taught me to help me to become successful in my new role. And so that was just like a key, I am in a full circle, because here I'm there as a visitor, a family member of mine, my dad having a surgery and a nurse who took my training was there, and she was stressed because she was, you know, in a new role. And then for her to say, you know, what I the skills that you taught me, during the training, I'm going to use that to help me be able to be successful in my new role, like, Oh, my

Unknown: 22:37

God,

Damaris Grossmann: 22:40

crying moment, like here, you're you're dealing with your own things on a personal level, but you were still able to kind of like, bring it forward to someone, even when you're still kind of like, you know, dealing with your own stress. That's, and that's, that's it, that's hard and also beautiful, you know, because you were dealing with your own things and being vulnerable. And yet this woman, you've made change. And that's just yesterday, right? I'm just imagine how many more ripples you've made in, in your in like career and work. So keep doing what you're doing. Because as I say, like being mindfully integrative. To me, it's, you know, like I was speaking, it's a passion project of, I feel that more and more practitioners like yourself and in the healthcare field, are going to be making a difference and letting people know that, you know, the small things kind of bring us home, whether and what you bring to your audience, into your family into your patients and, and all of these other people, it will be amazing. So I'm really appreciative of you joining us on the podcast. Thank you so much for your time. I know that it's very precious now. With work and everything. So thanks for taking a few minutes with us. And if Is there anything more that you want to discuss that we can chat with real quick or

Debbie Lyn: 23:59

I just want to thank you for having me on your program. If there are nurses out there who might be interested in taking my two day program in person this year?

Damaris Grossmann: 24:08

Oh, you were talking about you have a retreat? Right? Yes, I talk about it.

Debbie Lyn: 24:11

Yeah. All right. So I in September, September 9, and 10th in Massachusetts, I'll be doing a two day self care and resiliency training for nurses. And that's with 12.5 contact hours. And it'll be in this beautiful mini retreat center. And again, this is my third year running the program. I'm really passionate about taking care of the caregivers. The nurses have gone through such a whirlwind of experience. Let me put it that way in a positive way. Oh, no. It's just like a real big roller coaster and burnout is just a big issue PTSD, vicarious trauma, all these different things that nurses have had to deal with before COVID. And now it COVID has made it really on steroids. So if you know anybody or nurses who might be interested in the program, please reach out to me. Oh, absolutely. Yeah,

Damaris Grossmann: 25:15

I'm gonna put you in like all your information will be in the link below for our podcast, and also on our YouTube channel and then on My website so I will be reached putting all of your information on the social links so you they can reach out to you and cash out your program. And then hopefully maybe later on you'll want to join us again on the podcast at some other future time. I would love it. All right, well thank you so much for you know, taking the time with us and spending. We appreciate you here on mindfully integrative. Thanks again. Thank

Unknown: 25:48

you