Reclaiming Yourself in Midlife with Sandra Wood

In this insightful interview, Sandra Wood shares her journey of self-discovery, the importance of boundaries, and how women can reconnect with their authentic selves during midlife. Discover practical strategies for inner exploration, healing relationships, and embracing your true identity.

Chapters

00:00 The Journey of Self-Discovery
02:45 Awakening Through Adversity
05:34 Setting Boundaries and Redefining Identity
08:19 Navigating Relationships and Personal Growth
11:06 Building a Relationship with Yourself
14:03 Embracing Your Inner Landscape
19:17 Embracing Wisdom from Life Experiences
22:11 The Journey of Coaching and Personal Growth
25:49 Navigating Business Challenges and Entrepreneurship
28:38 Rediscovering Self: Values and Non-Negotiables
31:10 The Importance of Self-Compassion and Kindness

 resources

Sandra Wood's Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/sandrawoodcoach/
Substack Articles by Sandra Wood - https://sandrawood.substack.com/
Sandra Wood's Official Website - https://sandrawood.coach

Are you ready to stop shrinking yourself? It's time to take up space and live boldly. Join us for a special 4-week workshop this September where we will find those ways we minimize ourselves, explore the why and then take action to transform ourselves from hiding and staying small to owning our bold life. 

Transcript

Kim Benoy (00:01.359)
Hello everyone and welcome back to Midlife with Courage. I am Kim Benoy, your host. I am so happy to have you all here listening with me today. And I'm also very happy to have my guest with me today. Her name is Sandra Wood. Welcome to the podcast, Sandra.

Sandra S Wood (00:14.68)
Thank you, I'm excited to be here.

Kim Benoy (00:17.047)
Yes, Sandra, you are a coach for midlife women. And we're going to talk about that. But we're, mainly talking today about how we, how the best relationship with our, the best relationship is our relationship with ourselves. And you have a story about quietly losing yourself, or maybe not so quietly.

Sandra S Wood (00:36.694)
Yes. Well, yes. mean, I think that a lot of things happen for us women. And I think that a lot of times we quietly lose ourselves and we don't really know what's happening. And for me, it wasn't such a quiet awakening. I got breast cancer. And so that woke me up to be exploring my life. But I think a lot of women don't necessarily have like a crisis.

But they just kind of wake up one day and they look in the mirror and they're like, I don't know who I am. And there's a sense of feeling lost. And also it's kind of a redefinition of identity, right? It's like, who am I now? And I would just say that it kind of happens in small increments. And it happens in all the ways like us saying yes, when maybe we mean no, or, you know, shrinking to keep the peace if things, you know, get spicy in relationships. And I think

Kim Benoy (01:17.465)
Right.

Sandra S Wood (01:35.83)
We just get so good at managing everything that that becomes our identity. And then I think that's the day where you look up and you're like, what just happened? And I think part of it is just like a thousand small surrenders of things we weren't aware of, right?

Kim Benoy (01:55.183)
I love how you put that a thousand small surrenders. Yeah.

Sandra S Wood (01:58.414)
Yes, yes. So then one day we kind of look around, it's like, what has happened and why does it take so long? And I think part of the reason why we keep doing it and how it goes on for so long is because we get rewarded. You know, like we get, maybe we get promoted at work, we get praised, we get called dependable and strong and capable. And no one's like really pulling us aside and saying, hey, you're disappearing, right?

Kim Benoy (02:27.011)
Yeah.

Sandra S Wood (02:27.842)
it's piling on more because you're good at it right so i always call this like we're highly capable and so it almost is kind of an over functioning for everyone else but not necessarily for ourselves so we lose the relationship with ourselves

Kim Benoy (02:31.086)
Right.

Kim Benoy (02:44.771)
Yeah, it's, I've been talking a lot lately with other guests too about how the things that we think are important to come from the outside of us. Like you just said, everybody's telling us, you do this while you do this. And we get to that point where we think, wait, I need to look here. This is what's important.

Sandra S Wood (02:58.775)
huh.

Sandra S Wood (03:05.326)
Yes, yes, yes. I talk about the internal landscape a lot. My favorite quote, which so I became a coach in 2005 and then I went through a big life journey and here I am again. But if you don't go within, you go without. And when we really sit with that, a lot of us are afraid to go within because we're afraid of what we're going to find in there. You know, I kind of like to think of it, you know, especially like if I'm working with a client.

Kim Benoy (03:16.377)
Yeah.

Kim Benoy (03:24.738)
Yeah.

Kim Benoy (03:29.827)
Right.

Sandra S Wood (03:34.934)
is that we're going into their inner landscape and I'm coming in and I'm a safe person and we've got a flashlight and we all got the things in the attic and the things in the basement, right? It's like we haven't looked at it while. So it's just like being willing to go in there and see, well, who am I now? And what is this all about anyways? And do I like how things are going? And are these relationships healthy? And where am I in all of this?

Kim Benoy (03:46.499)
Yeah.

Kim Benoy (04:05.006)
Yeah. The stuff inside is scary stuff.

Sandra S Wood (04:05.741)
Yeah.

It really is and that's why we avoid it. That's why we get so caught up in the external because we can see what we're doing. We can see, there's a need. I'm going to go meet that. And that makes me feel good. And I'm not saying that as women, shouldn't, you know, feel good about serving others, but it really should come from that place of that we want to not that we were told to or that we were trained to. It should come from that place of really our own authenticity.

which, you know, that is like, well, what is that? You know, I came across that when I was 40 and when I went through breast cancer, I had the message strongly that I wasn't living my life for myself, I was living it for everyone else. And while that all looked good on paper, my body was letting me know, this isn't working for you.

Kim Benoy (04:51.534)
Mm-hmm.

Kim Benoy (04:58.166)
Yeah. So let's talk, let's dig into that a little bit. How did, what did your body tell you? How did it tell you?

Sandra S Wood (05:04.574)
my gosh, well, you know, I, well, first of all, I was going through treatment and you know, I went into like a victim state for a little while because it was like, poor me. And, you know, this is terrible. But then I was like, this is not sustainable. Like I'm not a victim of my life. This this is, this has happened. And maybe the best thing I can do is start to explore why this happened. And so I had an experience where I standing outside like my front yard. I think one of my daughters was riding her bike or something.

And I felt like something was tapping me on the shoulder and saying, are you ready? And to me, that was like the universe or God or however you want to frame that. And I kind of looked around like, am I crazy? Who is talking to me? I just think it was my higher self talking to me and saying, are you ready? And I stopped and I'm like, ready for what? And the answer that came from within me was to show up for yourself.

So then I was like, yes. And then I gulped because I knew I was taking on something. had no idea what that was. But it immediately started me thinking about who am I? And really what I ended up having to do was set boundaries.

Kim Benoy (06:18.35)
That is a common theme. Yes. Yes.

Sandra S Wood (06:19.778)
Yes, it is for everyone, right? I spend a lot of time helping women with boundaries and understanding how to go through the whole process. I self-taught myself. I was raised in a home where I had no demonstration of boundaries. My parents were very dramatic in their communication. They had a lot of challenges. And so I was just always fixing everything. And so my identity was around being the peacemaker.

Kim Benoy (06:28.739)
Yeah.

Sandra S Wood (06:48.578)
being the wise one, right? Everyone came to me, but I wasn't coming to myself. And so that when I saw that quote, if you don't go within, you go without, it really struck me. And so I started this journey of showing up for myself. Yeah. I have a younger brother who's five and a half years younger than me. Yes. I was the oldest. Yeah. Yeah, the responsible.

Kim Benoy (07:00.418)
Yeah.

Kim Benoy (07:04.046)
Did you have siblings or do you have siblings I should say?

Kim Benoy (07:10.156)
Okay. So you were the oldest. Yeah. Yeah. I always wonder if that has a part in that.

Sandra S Wood (07:16.408)
Probably I was the mother. I mean, I really true. I mean, I came across this word only a couple of years ago that I was parentized. Do you know that word? you heard? The adults in the household, you know, all those things, I think that happens to a lot of us women, you know, end up caregiving a lot. And so then we don't show up for ourselves. So in that moment, I realized that that what cancer was telling me is that if I didn't pivot,

Kim Benoy (07:24.748)
I think I have heard that. Yeah. Yeah.

Kim Benoy (07:32.43)
Sure.

Sandra S Wood (07:44.555)
I could very well have that experience again. And there was no way I was going to do that. So it made me do really hard things like set boundaries, get divorced, start my life over, single parenting, like, you know, all the things when, when, when we have to kind of dismantle and begin again. Yeah.

Kim Benoy (07:57.87)
Wow.

Kim Benoy (08:03.136)
Yeah. That, yeah, it's the boundaries is a huge thing for all of us, but yeah, especially certain types of us, but yeah. so, and I hear, I don't know, I don't know why it is, but a lot of my guests tell me that they've ended their marriage and they needed to, it was a good thing. And as some, I've been married a long time and I will admit there's been times I've considered it, but we're good. We're good.

Sandra S Wood (08:09.197)
Yes.

Sandra S Wood (08:18.072)
Mm-hmm.

Yes. Yes. Yes.

Sandra S Wood (08:26.732)
Mm-hmm.

Sandra S Wood (08:31.514)
Yeah, yeah. Well, marriage is hard. Period. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I'd love to talk about that. Yeah, yeah, I'd love to talk about that. mean, for me, when I got married, I thought that was I mean, in my mind, it's a one and done experience, you know, but it's also 22. And, you know, we changed and grew up in our marriage. And so

Kim Benoy (08:33.76)
Yeah, it is hard. It is hard, but can we just talk about that a little bit? Or can you talk about it? Yeah.

Kim Benoy (08:48.814)
Mm-hmm.

Sandra S Wood (08:57.3)
even when it got challenging, still thought it was doable, you know, and workable. But I think the biggest point for me when I started to realize, we're on different pages is when I asked my husband after cancer, where do you see our lives in the next 20 years? And he said, exactly like this. And I knew that I couldn't do that. And so, you know, we went to therapy and I mean, I gave it everything I could. It just, he didn't.

Kim Benoy (09:24.184)
Yeah. Yeah.

Sandra S Wood (09:25.55)
And he didn't want to do the work. He wanted me to be the Sandra that I was before cancer and didn't really want me to have boundaries, you know, and not a bad human, you know, I just kind of a typical man in a lot of ways. And so that led me to that place. And I think the part that is why, a big part of why I realized I wanted to move on was that I didn't want my daughters to see that you just settle.

Kim Benoy (09:31.285)
Mmm.

Of Yeah.

Sandra S Wood (09:54.433)
and they have to stay small in order to stay married. Now, if I could have been me and we could have worked through that, then there would have been no reason for it. and every time I work with a woman who is dealing with relationship challenges, I'm all about, let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Let's really see what's here because a lot of times there's very workable situations and ways to change and grow. And a lot of couples are able to do that.

Kim Benoy (10:03.469)
Yeah.

Sandra S Wood (10:22.22)
You know, they get to certain age, they regroup and they, they carry on, but it just, it was just not an option for me. And I think that happens to a lot of women, you know, and you think you, you know, I think, I think when my husband said, you're not who I thought you were, you know, I realized that I had the same statement about him because I thought he was a much more emotional, spiritual man. And he basically was telling me, I don't want to be all that, you know? So that was really where I came to the terms of.

Kim Benoy (10:22.412)
Mm-hmm.

Kim Benoy (10:30.519)
Mm-hmm.

Kim Benoy (10:46.154)
Yeah.

Sandra S Wood (10:52.078)
okay, well, I'd really like to have that relationship and the beauty of him. And I mean, I, I still love this human because I have these amazing daughters and I hold that with great reverence. And I think he doesn't know what to do with that. Good or bad. It's like, no, it's not bad at all. You just, it was sustainable. But I, you know, I just feel like what the benefit of that marriage is that it really taught me what I did want moving forward.

Kim Benoy (11:07.52)
Ha ha ha ha ha ha.

Kim Benoy (11:12.302)
Yeah.

Kim Benoy (11:21.08)
sure.

Sandra S Wood (11:21.358)
And so, and that's what I always work with women when we're talking about relationships is you have to know what isn't working so you don't go recreate it again, because we go back to the familiar, you know, and a lot of women say, why do I always pick the same person? It's like, well, because we didn't deal with, you know, what happened in the past and what your patterns are, you know, so for me, I understood that enough to know I want this kind of man. And I always say, you know, what you wish for you do get

Kim Benoy (11:42.797)
Yeah.

Sandra S Wood (11:51.125)
And so I really wished for an emotional man because I didn't have one. And now I really have that. But I mean, it's a great thing. It's a great thing because he feels and we can walk through a lot of our emotions together. but yeah, that I, but I just, I'm an advocate for not quitting things just because they're hard, but also really helping women assess what is really happening. And I think a lot of times what women can discover is that it is a,

Kim Benoy (11:51.137)
Yep.

Kim Benoy (11:55.513)
Yeah.

Kim Benoy (12:12.066)
Mm-hmm.

Sandra S Wood (12:20.43)
quietly abusive relationship. And so that was kind of what I discovered and I will never advocate for that for women. But sometimes it's just the communication is poor and that's a skill we just need to acquire, that's all. Boundaries is a skill. Women will say, oh, I'm just not good at it. And it's like, as if it's a personality thing. It's like,

Kim Benoy (12:23.566)
Mmm.

Kim Benoy (12:32.118)
Right, right.

Kim Benoy (12:36.909)
Yeah.

Kim Benoy (12:40.502)
Yeah. Yeah.

Sandra S Wood (12:47.202)
Well, you just don't have experience and you didn't, mean, it's just like, nobody teaches us boundaries growing up, right? Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. And you know, maybe you're not Picasso, but you could be the best version of your art. You know, we just, we don't need to compare, but yeah. Yeah.

Kim Benoy (12:53.6)
Yeah, yeah, it's like I'm not good at painting, but I could learn how to paint.

Kim Benoy (13:03.018)
Yeah. Yeah. Right, right. Yeah. No boundaries is a hard one. Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. I think you're the first person I've actually asked that about because because I've just been noticing that comes up a lot. But thank you. Yeah. So how do we you say you've built yourself rebuilt yourself more than once with everything that you've had happen? How do we go about that?

Sandra S Wood (13:11.246)
I'm sorry.

yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sandra S Wood (13:29.31)
Okay, well, how we go about that is, for one, we start to spend a little bit more time with ourselves. So if our whole life is built around being busy with other people, we start mapping out a little bit of time to go on a date with ourselves. You know, and that means, I mean, it can be, you know, I'm going to go window shopping. I mean, it doesn't have to be something super deep and woo woo, but it is just this intentional time to be with self.

Kim Benoy (13:46.647)
Yeah.

Sandra S Wood (13:58.199)
and to get comfortable with self. I think that's a great starting place for all of us. And I catch myself a lot of times like, I need time with myself. And it might just be that I make myself a really nice meal. husband travels a lot, but it's getting comfortable with ourself is really kind of the beginning piece. And then it is really starting to ask ourselves, what do I desire? Like, what do I want? What do I desire? What do I need? What do I want?

Kim Benoy (14:23.822)
Mmm.

Sandra S Wood (14:28.674)
You know, and I know when I got divorced from my first husband, I didn't even know me. Like I didn't know what I liked anymore. Like, did I like scrambled eggs or, you know, because we do things with other people, right? And it sounds kind of silly, but it's just like really just getting in touch with those pieces. And then, and then I think the other parts of that are really kind of just evaluating what makes you feel good and what doesn't make you feel good. You know, so we can simplify this. wow. I went and hung out with.

Kim Benoy (14:40.152)
Yeah. No.

Kim Benoy (14:52.899)
Yeah.

Sandra S Wood (14:57.452)
with a friend I've known for 20 years, it never makes me feel good when I leave. What's that all about? So we just start to investigate where we feel good and where we don't feel good. These are just really simple places to start with just getting to know ourselves. And I think that's why you said it's scary because what's inside there might be things we haven't looked at in a while, or there might be a lot of dysfunction there and we've just dealt with it because it's just how things are.

Kim Benoy (15:08.28)
Mm-hmm.

Kim Benoy (15:26.072)
Yeah.

Sandra S Wood (15:26.156)
You know, and I think that's where coaches and, you know, or different, you know, helpers can come in. Maybe you need, maybe therapy would be a good thing for you to unpack some of those patterns or things that came from your past. Maybe it was a lot of trauma. It's time to take a look at it. Or maybe it's just simply that you want to understand yourself better and, know, like working with a coach or even, you know, having open conversations with people that you care about that could, that could listen. Those are different ways to start.

Kim Benoy (15:53.464)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Sandra S Wood (15:56.247)
Yeah. How about you, Kim? I'm curious. Like how, how have you built a, I mean, you obviously don't have this podcast and do this work without having to have yourself. I'm curious about you.

Kim Benoy (15:59.189)
You

Yeah, no, I, a friend of mine turned me on to meditation a few years ago, and that was kind of the starting block or starting point and just turning into my own energy and, thinking and kind of, kind of what you just said is, you know, what, what makes me happy, what lights me up, what brings me joy, and really paying attention to what my body tells me. Because if I'm in a certain situation and

Sandra S Wood (16:28.001)
Yeah.

Sandra S Wood (16:31.34)
Yes.

Kim Benoy (16:35.318)
I can tell when it's something, there's something not quite right. I can feel it. You know, my stomach clenches or, whatever. And then I start asking myself, okay, what's going on there? What is that all about? Yeah.

Sandra S Wood (16:39.138)
Yeah. Yeah.

Sandra S Wood (16:46.03)
What is it all about? I know I always tell a story. I have daughters and you know, I read them this book called Madeline. I don't know if you're reading that book, but there's a part where in the middle of the book, the nun sits up and says, something is not right. Well, I think we all have the nun inside of us that is nudging us like, uh-uh, you know, and when we can start to hear those little uh-uhs, then we can spend some time with that. And I think contemplation is undervalued, which meditation

Kim Benoy (16:52.948)
yeah.

Kim Benoy (17:04.834)
Yeah.

Kim Benoy (17:10.243)
Right.

Kim Benoy (17:13.987)
Mm-hmm.

Sandra S Wood (17:14.85)
bring contemplation, but just even sitting with something that you I think of it like a thread, like that nun sits up and says something is not right, we can get curious about that. And we can start to investigate it. And when we do those kinds of things, we start to discover more about ourselves. And you know, for me to leave a marriage was super hard, because on paper, it looked good. But I had already created that something is not right. And I kept unraveling it. And what I found underneath it is,

Kim Benoy (17:25.997)
Yes.

Sandra S Wood (17:44.589)
This isn't the life I want to have because I am this woman here. And so I think it's those pieces of, know, and yeah, listening. mean, my body gave me the biggest message ever, right? yeah, think when women are experiencing burnout, I mean, their body is telling them, I cannot go. You're, beyond capacity. Please stop. Give me a minute to catch my breath.

Kim Benoy (17:49.976)
Yeah.

Kim Benoy (17:57.065)
Yeah, you had the billboard.

Sandra S Wood (18:10.804)
And I think that taking that pause is a brave thing to do. And it's a really healthy thing to do. And I think for a lot of women, they just knowing that other, that it can be done and you won't collapse and you'll be okay if you start to figure out who you are. And this is why I love working with women because it's like, first of all, you're not broken. So you just have patterns that are running and things that may not be working. And maybe you do have a lot of

Kim Benoy (18:27.991)
Yep.

Kim Benoy (18:33.911)
Right.

Sandra S Wood (18:40.002)
experiences and traumas that have been very hard to get through and, and, and it will never deny a woman's, you know, experiences. But the other piece is that there, you're a diamond too, at the same time. And, and you're just, and I just, think every, I think every human is a beautiful soul, even if they're a very, lost soul wandering the earth, creating chaos. still think there's, there's something there, but I just think that.

Kim Benoy (18:51.938)
Yeah. love that.

Kim Benoy (19:02.286)
Hahaha

Kim Benoy (19:06.796)
Yeah, right.

Sandra S Wood (19:09.204)
If women really sat with loving themselves and sitting and being tender with themselves, and that's why I like sitting with women, because I can show them through my own words and my own vision of them that they are that, then they can start to see that in themselves. And when you start to that in yourself, it becomes easier to say no. It becomes easier to do the things that you've been called, like the big thing that you've always wanted to do, because now you feel

grounded in yourself. And the attic and the basement isn't scary anymore. It's just who you are. It's just all the pieces of who you are and who you've been, you know, and yeah, it doesn't look pretty sometimes. It's okay. Yeah.

Kim Benoy (19:40.301)
Right.

Kim Benoy (19:44.771)
Yep.

Kim Benoy (19:48.61)
Yeah.

Kim Benoy (19:52.801)
No, that's okay. Yeah, I think I've had some people who I've talked to one of my first podcast guests, I always think about her, she was telling me about some things that she did. And she really minimized the fact that she had created this business that was successful with her, her husband at the time. And she raised some kids, had daughters and

And she just, as she was telling me that she just kind of minimized it. And I said, now, wait a second. You just told me that you did this and this and this. And those aren't little things. Those are big things. So I think it's really important to point that out and help women realize that. You know, what's it. Yeah. Yeah. Just look what you did. And now here, now you can just run with it and have that confidence within you. So yeah.

Sandra S Wood (20:23.886)
Uh-huh.

Sandra S Wood (20:30.914)
Mm-hmm.

Sandra S Wood (20:36.684)
Yes, I know we were ahead, right?

Sandra S Wood (20:47.768)
Yes, and I think on the flip side of that, we can also look at all our experiences and some of them are not so positive. I just like to think of that experiences with awareness is earned wisdom. And at our ages, whatever ages you are, you have a right to what you've done and what you've learned. And yes, maybe you wouldn't do it the second time around that way. But I think women can just understand that.

Kim Benoy (20:54.755)
Mm-hmm.

Kim Benoy (21:08.653)
Yeah.

Kim Benoy (21:12.653)
Right.

Sandra S Wood (21:15.562)
In midlife, you can take all these experiences and you have wisdom and people need your wisdom because only you had that experience, only me had that experience with my parents and only me healed that relationship with them. So that when they passed, I had said everything and they had said everything. So that's the beauty of what we can offer other women too is our friends can hear those stories and we can convert all,

Kim Benoy (21:29.603)
Mm-hmm.

Sandra S Wood (21:45.279)
all those challenges into something we learn and something we're carrying forward instead of staying stock in the narrative and telling it over and over again and being mad at everybody. Right? That's exhausting. And the body doesn't like that. The body doesn't like that.

Kim Benoy (21:57.383)
Yeah, yeah, it is. No, no. Yeah, it's you like when you're just having those negative thoughts, you just your whole being just kind of shrinks down and you can just feel that and yeah.

Sandra S Wood (22:11.63)
Yes, yeah. I mean, it's fine to be able to express things, but I just think that a lot of times we recycle, know, recycle the expression. And when you hear yourself, I mean, that's what that I think what I found myself doing when I was going through cancer, I was recycling that I was a victim of this. And it was like, uh, no, that and I could just see where would where does that get me? It gets me small.

Kim Benoy (22:16.333)
Yeah.

Yes.

Kim Benoy (22:32.206)
you

Sandra S Wood (22:37.43)
And I was fighting to play big, you know, and I think your whole podcast is here to help women, you know, I, and I think all of those reiterations of ourselves is courage, you know, all hard things that we've done and the more we do it, the more we, we realize we're capable. So when the next thing comes along, we're like, we're not collapsing. like, well, I freaking don't know how to do this thing.

Kim Benoy (22:37.698)
Yeah.

Kim Benoy (22:48.982)
Yes.

Kim Benoy (22:55.787)
Exactly.

Kim Benoy (23:02.542)
But I just did that thing and that's going to help me.

Sandra S Wood (23:06.67)
You know, and I mean, and everything builds on it. think you're right. I think as women, forget to stop and go, girl, that was bad. Yeah, sorry. I swearing is okay here. Yeah, it's it's just that feeling of like, no, you're, you're awesome. And, and I think I have to pause sometimes and remind myself what I just did too. So it's very human to forget.

Kim Benoy (23:14.606)
We do, we do forget that. That's okay, we don't worry about it.

Kim Benoy (23:31.756)
Yeah. Yeah. For sure. For sure. Now you have been coaching since 2005. That seems like a long time to me because I've seems like I've just heard about coaching in the last five, 10 years, maybe most. Yeah.

Sandra S Wood (23:38.475)
Mm-hmm.

Sandra S Wood (23:44.321)
I know isn't that crazy? Yeah, it's really interesting. I had a friend offer me a book called Coactive Coaching in 2005 and I read it and went, my god, this is what I've been doing. know, because a lot of people discover, I'm a coach and you also see how people have been in your life. Like you are that person that people feel comfortable talking to. And so but it gave me a framework of how to do it healthily, not codependently.

Kim Benoy (23:59.243)
Sandra S Wood (24:14.272)
And so I went through, I went through certification and did that like right after cancer treatment and opened an office, hung my shingle. and I called it inner path coaching. No, and, and so I, you know, no one even knew what that was, but you know, word of mouth happened and I saw everyone and everything now in coaching industry, you're niched. You have this population you work with so people can find you, right?

Kim Benoy (24:26.688)
Nice.

Kim Benoy (24:34.114)
Yeah.

Sandra S Wood (24:41.848)
But I saw everything, had men and women, all ages, all experiences, and it was going well, but I didn't know how to be an entrepreneur. I knew how to be a practitioner. back then, no one taught you how to do any of that stuff. So I was charging, you know, very minimally, and then I got divorced, and then I was single parenting, and the stock market crashed. So I had to take my coaching skills into employment.

Kim Benoy (24:41.889)
Yeah.

Kim Benoy (24:46.254)
Okay.

Kim Benoy (24:52.238)
sure.

Kim Benoy (24:58.456)
Yeah.

Sandra S Wood (25:10.12)
And so I took those into, I ended up in nonprofit in like leadership management. And so I just coached all my, all of my staff, you know, in a professional realm. but it, just kept going and kept going. And then in 2020, I was an oncology manager in the healthcare system. And when the healthcare system went, so did I. And I came home and said, I can't work for anyone anymore. I got to go back to.

Kim Benoy (25:10.168)
Sure.

Kim Benoy (25:16.184)
Okay.

Kim Benoy (25:21.806)
Sure.

Kim Benoy (25:30.798)
Got you. Yep. Yep.

Kim Benoy (25:38.158)
you

Sandra S Wood (25:39.023)
doing this full time, but now I need to know how to be a business owner entrepreneur. So that's other layer. But yes. And then coaching, you know, I would say really in the last five years has become much more known as a thing, but I just like to say I'm an OG. I'm, you know, and all, and you know, I think new coaches, nothing wrong with that. But I'm also telling people to be very discerning, just like you'd be discerning hiring a doctor or a lawyer.

Kim Benoy (25:44.898)
Yeah.

Kim Benoy (25:54.444)
Yeah. Yeah!

Kim Benoy (26:02.402)
Mm-hmm.

Sandra S Wood (26:08.982)
or a therapist, you know, you have a right to ask questions and, and if it's not a right fit, don't do it. Boundary. Exactly. Yeah. But yeah, it's, it's been, it's just, it's part of my, just, it's been part of my mission here. You know, it's, have a skill. have, I have, I have a desire for people to love themselves really, and to know themselves and to have the life that they came here to have.

Kim Benoy (26:16.246)
Yep. There's your boundary. Say no. Yeah.

Kim Benoy (26:26.412)
Yeah.

Kim Benoy (26:38.53)
Yeah. I love that. That's amazing. And I love that you, it's like, was a nurse for 27 years and I got my base of nursing from doing like med surge, everything, you know, and then I brought it down into OB and then wherever I went, but, that's kind of what you did with coaching. got the whole big picture of it and then you brought it down to, women. Yeah. Yeah. And here I am now still helping. yes.

Sandra S Wood (26:38.68)
Yeah.

Sandra S Wood (26:48.778)
my gosh, yep.

Yes.

Sandra S Wood (26:56.894)
up and specialize down. Yeah, exactly, exactly. And here you are now.

And it's really helping. Yeah.

Kim Benoy (27:08.192)
How did you, how did you get your business experience? I'm curious. Just totally curious about that.

Sandra S Wood (27:12.334)
Well, I got business experience just like being in business. So I learned about business in that realm, but I was not responsible. But I mean, just hard, hard knocks, you know, learning things, paying people for things that they didn't deliver. Like, I mean, it's a mess, know, it really is, you know, and now I'm like five years later and like, I get it now. It also made me develop skills I didn't have before.

Kim Benoy (27:24.931)
Yeah.

Kim Benoy (27:30.71)
Yeah.

Kim Benoy (27:37.847)
You got it.

Sandra S Wood (27:41.933)
You know, if you work for other people, if you're a nurse or, you know, if you're, you know, I was a manager and, you know, I didn't know how to do any of those things. So I just started from ground zero and, know, I just, lot of it's self-taught. And then a lot of it is, you know, you hire people to help you with those things. And I didn't have great discernment in beginning and now I do, you know, the teams helping me and, my youngest daughter is a business coach.

Kim Benoy (27:42.158)
Mm.

Kim Benoy (28:02.743)
you

Kim Benoy (28:08.744)
nice, there you go.

Sandra S Wood (28:10.702)
is what happens when you grow up with a mom who's a life coach. You become a coach too.

Kim Benoy (28:14.124)
Yeah, you come a coach too. Yeah. Yeah. I love that. That's, that's awesome. I love that. And you said, you said you wouldn't, couldn't work for other people now that I was just to having that conversation with someone like I am unemployable because if I had to go back and work for someone.

Sandra S Wood (28:31.833)
Yeah. Yeah. Especially after all those years, because you put up with so much, right? And I'm not saying any of that for me, none of that was negative, but what I found in the end was, I was working for a cancer center that was very male dominated and then all the women did all the work. so a lot of the, and I just think the system didn't know how to pivot.

Kim Benoy (28:37.302)
Yes. Yeah.

Kim Benoy (28:41.955)
Yeah.

Kim Benoy (28:52.983)
Yeah.

Sandra S Wood (28:57.774)
through all of that. And I am an advocate style person. So I started advocating for my team and that was not well received. And then gas lighting started happening and just, you know, it just, went wonky and I'd had those things happen before and I had to pivot, you you just make, you make it work. But that moment was just like, I am too strong. I'm too loud. I'm too big. I'm not going to fit.

Kim Benoy (29:03.341)
Mm-hmm.

Kim Benoy (29:08.328)
Kim Benoy (29:14.477)
Yeah.

Sandra S Wood (29:27.488)
in this model and do all the small things you want me to do and shut my mouth. I couldn't do it anymore. And quite honestly, I I have coached a lot of nurses. So I just understand the system, you know, and I understand like, you know, just how dedicated and how hard, you know, everyone works in, in all those.

Kim Benoy (29:29.304)
Yeah.

Kim Benoy (29:33.046)
Yeah. Yeah. So bye. Yeah.

Kim Benoy (29:42.478)
Good, good, I'm glad. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Sandra S Wood (29:55.459)
those tracks. anyways, yeah, I just and it was a big deal for me to come home and tell my husband that, you know, we're not going to have this income. And he was like, Okay, we can do it. So yeah. Yeah.

Kim Benoy (29:56.962)
Yeah. Yeah.

Kim Benoy (30:01.837)
I bet, I bet.

Yeah.

Kim Benoy (30:08.906)
Nice, nice. Yeah, something similar happened with me too. And I kind of got the same like, okay. So what's your plan? So yeah, yeah, yeah. So good. Awesome. So we kind of got off on a little tangent there, but I still like it. It was good. See, we never I never know where these conversations, conversations are gonna go. Yes, exactly. So to the women listening out there.

Sandra S Wood (30:17.118)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, so here you go. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

That we did.

Yeah, that's beauty of it.

Kim Benoy (30:36.896)
If they're in this space where they're just, you know, they feel like they're in this place where they have lost themselves, what would you tell them the first thing to do?

Sandra S Wood (30:47.346)
Mm-hmm. I will ask them to figure out what their values are. Like, go there. What are your values? And then I also have women start thinking about, and this sounds kind of like a weird aspect, but it kind of helps us know ourselves better to understand what your non-negotiables are. Like, what are things you're done negotiating in your life right now?

Kim Benoy (31:08.386)
Mmm.

Sandra S Wood (31:12.258)
because it kind of strips down. Like I think we find ourselves when we extract the different pieces. So when we get to know like, who am I, what do I value and what are my non-negotiables? It starts to create a movement that can begin to help get more clarity on where you want to move moving forward. And I think also if women are over,

overperforming and overcompensating. you know, I always say competence becomes your competence becomes everyone else's convenience. You know, so it's like, how can you pull yourself away from all the things you really don't want to do anymore? Because then you will find yourself. So and when I say, you know, what are your non negotiables, it might just be, you know, I don't I, I, you know, I

Kim Benoy (31:54.466)
Yeah.

Sandra S Wood (32:06.758)
I am mapping out three hours a week that I'm taking walks, you know, or I am a woman who takes care of herself. So therefore that means I take walks every week. And then in those walks, maybe I'm spending time, you know, thinking about things or contemplating things, reviewing things. Those are just great little ways to start. Sit down on a mat and put a timer on your phone for five minutes.

Kim Benoy (32:32.632)
Ha ha.

Sandra S Wood (32:34.294)
and breathe and notice all your thoughts and notice what you hear and notice what you sense. Those are just some ways to just take a pause. And really this is taking a pause and I can give you all the different things, but I would just say pause for a minute.

Kim Benoy (32:44.898)
Yeah.

Kim Benoy (32:51.672)
Love that. Yeah. And five minutes doesn't sound like a lot, but when you're sitting in five minutes, it's a lot.

Sandra S Wood (32:56.462)
Oh yeah, that's why I never tell people, oh, start with a 30 minute, don't start with 30 minutes, two minutes, even one minute. just make it, know, a lot of people are like, I can't sit still for one minute. Well, I think you can. Cause you suspect a lot of other people, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Kim Benoy (33:00.58)
Mm-mm. Yeah.

Kim Benoy (33:09.548)
You can you can do anything. Yeah, right. Right. Awesome. Well, Sandra, if people are more are interested in learning more about you in what you're in your coaching, where would you want them to check that out?

Sandra S Wood (33:20.622)
Mm-hmm.

Sandra S Wood (33:24.332)
There are three places they can go to check it because everybody learns differently. If they're an Instagram person, it's just Sandra Wood Coach. There you can kind of see if I have like boundary management classes and things like that. If you're a reader, you can go to Substack. And I write a lot. I'm a writer. So you could read articles and I'm Sandra Wood Coach on Substack. And then my website is sandrawood.coach. So very easy to remember. You can find me.

Kim Benoy (33:40.128)
Okay.

Sandra S Wood (33:53.079)
and all those different places. could book a clarity call and just, yeah, take a look at all of the things that I have in there. And if you want to chat, reach out. Yeah.

Kim Benoy (34:03.04)
Yeah. Awesome. And I'm assuming you do coaching over internet or zoom. Okay. Just to make sure. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

Sandra S Wood (34:07.982)
Yes, yes. yeah, yeah. have, for a lot of women, you know, sometimes it's hard to like pull the trigger and hire a coach because, know, a lot of times we don't know and we're trusting in somebody. I have like a one life activation session that's one session that they could buy and that's kind of a way to like...

understand what it is. And then I'm also doing a filming project at my house early in June, where I am actually having three women come to my home and we're filming coaching. And these are brave women who have said they will be on film and is only going to, you know, it's going to be a three minute film at the end. But I just think that women need to see what coaching looks like.

Kim Benoy (34:29.688)
Okay.

Kim Benoy (34:33.257)
Kim Benoy (34:40.745)
interesting.

Kim Benoy (34:53.846)
Yes.

Sandra S Wood (34:53.954)
because it's a big leap to like not have that and then walk into that piece. Usually women come into it because someone told them or they had an experience with that person. So I'm doing that too. look for that film to come out this summer just to see what that looks like and get a little flavor of it. I think that can really help women because it is a big leap of faith too. But yes, I do all of that virtually.

Kim Benoy (35:04.354)
Yeah.

Kim Benoy (35:11.619)
Yeah.

Kim Benoy (35:18.327)
Yeah.

Sandra S Wood (35:21.27)
and I, you know, I have like a six month midlife reset, so it can go light. It can go long. yeah. So I do have that program as well, but it's, but for me it's one-on-one coaching and then I just do group, group classes. You know, those are usually free or very low cost. So that's what one way for women just to start slow, come into a $29 course on boundaries and start there. Yeah. Yeah.

Kim Benoy (35:36.255)
Okay. Okay.

Okay.

Kim Benoy (35:44.703)
Okay. Awesome. Wonderful. Well, we'll put those links in the show notes for people to check that out. And I love that you're filming that because that's a lot of people don't mean I know what what actually is it? You know, what is coaching? So yeah.

Sandra S Wood (35:49.902)
Thank you, Ken. Yes!

Sandra S Wood (35:57.26)
Yeah, what does it look like? What are people, where are people even coming? Because you might see that, my gosh, I have that same thing too. Yeah, yeah, so yeah.

Kim Benoy (36:03.254)
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Awesome. Sandra, this has been such an amazing conversation. wish we could just keep going. We have to end it. Is there one last little?

Sandra S Wood (36:11.118)
my gosh. I think just, just keep that mantra to yourself that going within isn't scary and it's good and it's okay. And be kind to yourself. Yeah. Great place to start. Yeah.

Kim Benoy (36:28.238)
Be kind to yourself. Yes. Well, thank you so much. Oops. hit mute accidentally. Okay. I'll edit that out. Yeah. Thank you so much. We will talk to you soon.

Sandra S Wood (36:33.69)
Okay. Thank you, Kim.