How to Embrace a New Well-Being Approach and Beat Burnout. With Danette Deichmann

In this episode of "Spirit of an Athlete," host Amanda Smith interviews Danette Deichmann, who shares her transformative journey from a ballerina to a corporate sales professional and ultimately to a health coach. Danette discusses her struggles with burnout and health issues, including Epstein-Barr virus, which led her to adopt a holistic approach to wellness. She emphasizes the importance of nutrition, exercise, sleep, and stress management in her coaching practice. The conversation highlights the challenges of transitioning to health coaching and the significance of individualized care for clients. Danette's story is one of resilience and self-discovery.

In this Episode: 
[00:00:05] Danette Deichmann's journey from ballerina to corporate sales and health coaching.
[00:02:15] Experiences of burnout in both ballet and corporate environments.
[00:04:30] Personal health struggles, including issues related to the Epstein-Barr virus.
[00:06:45] The importance of a holistic approach to health, encompassing nutrition, exercise, sleep, and stress management.
[00:09:00] The concept of "bio-individuality" in health coaching and personalized care.
[00:11:20] The impact of hydration on overall health and wellness.
[00:13:40] Advocacy for strength training, particularly for women, and dispelling myths about weight lifting.
[00:16:00] Strategies for optimizing sleep quality and creating a conducive sleeping environment.
[00:18:20] Techniques for effective stress management and the importance of establishing a routine.
[00:20:40] The transformative potential of self-care and individualized support in health journeys.

Please connect with Danette here: 

Email: Healthcoachdanette@gmail.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/danettermay
Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@danettermay
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/danettermay/
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@danettermay

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Check out more from Amanda:
Website: Body Whisper Healing
Instagram: @Amanda.G.Smith
Facebook: Body Whisper Healing
Pinterest: AmandaGSmithBWH
LinkedIn: Amanda (Ritchie) Smith

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Transcript

0:19

Welcome back to another episode of spirit of an athlete. I'm your host, Amanda Smith, and on this episode I interviewed Danette Deichmann, who started off as a ballerina, burned out, went into corporate sales, burned out again, and found herself being a health coach. You'll find out that she doesn't love this title because she really works in four different pillars. She helps her clients with nutrition, exercise, sleep, and stress. To me, that makes her a holistic health coach. You'll hear a lot about her ballerina experience, her corporate world, and how she helps her clients in this episode. I hope you enjoy the Dykeman. Thank you so much for being on spirit of an athlete and sharing your expertise with us. Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here. I'm happy to have you here. Okay, so how. In the world did you get into the health industry? That was a little bit of a long way around. And I think similar to a lot of people's, um, way that they found maybe their own health and healing journey. But it was through being super sick myself from the time I was about ten on, I was a super sick kid. I was always on antibiotics. I always had some kind of infection or another, and that just got progressively worse as I went through college and had the stress of that and being a basically professional athlete all the way through college and then getting into corporate after that. I got sicker and sicker as I got more stressed out and added things like drinking and entertaining and being out with clients. I was getting sicker. I was gaining weight. My hormones were out of whack. I had depression and anxiety. There was just symptom after symptom and kind of, um, autoimmune illness on top of on top of that. So I was getting frustrated and getting no answers from doctors. It was more pills. Um, they wanted to take my tonsils out, but, you know, major surgeries and major things that were felt like throwing spaghetti at the wall to me and didn't feel like a true answer. Um, to the point where I said there has to be a better way. And I was very I was a ballerina in college. I was very in touch with my own body, um, and super interested in things like health and wellness and fitness and diet. So I started listening to podcasts, just trying to narrow down symptoms and get some answers around things, find answers that doctors weren't able to give me. Um, and it just turned into a passion. There was so much to learn and so much that I was finding as I applied. It gave me relief and what would solve a little piece of the puzzle. And I would start to get a little bit better and a little bit better. Um, and some of that frustration would go away. And I eventually got to a place where I eliminated the majority of my symptoms, and I just wanted to be able to help other people do that and hopefully avoid a little bit of the frustration themselves. Oh my gosh. Okay. We have a lot in common. Let's go back to ten years old. What was happening to you? Were you an athlete at that point? Yeah, I danced from the time I was three, and by 1011 I was at dance class three or 4 or 5 days a week, um, in rehearsals and everything. So I ran pretty, pretty quick and fast and homework in the car and eat in the car and then dance and then go to team practice at 5 a.m.. And so I was, I was I was very stressed out, not stressed out as a kid. I loved it, but I just was go go go go go. Um, and wasn't really giving my body a lot of rest. So I think that kind of started it. If there is one piece of advice you can give your ten year old self, that would have changed a lot of what you were going through, what would it have been? Asleep? No. Um. Uh. Um. Okay. Give me more. Did she do things that you. I don't know, it's hard to tell your ten year old self to slow down, but. But really, to slow down and enjoy things and, um. And be present, I think. Yeah. How do you tell a ten year old? So I have a ten year old. I can hear her in the background. Uh, how do you tell a ten year old to slow down? Well, what were some of the calmer things? Because this is I'm sure this is something that parents are thinking about right now. Like, what do I do to tell my kid to slow down? Because you can't just be like, you need to slow down. Right? Right. Yeah. Were there things that were slower that you liked to do at ten? I was a super A.D.D. kid. I mean, I'm a super adult. Um, so, so slow. Just is not my default pace. It it is. Go go go. Um. We're slower things, especially at that age, weren't capturing or keeping my attention, you know, things like homework or or even reading a book that I really loved in school was was harder for me to do. So it was easy to throw myself into the things that kept my attention and kept my body going, kept my mind going. Um, but they were faster pace. And then you stack them together. Um, kind of coming from that high achieving family mentality where you do everything and you do it perfect and, and that's how you get into the good school and that you just just keep going. Keep going. Um, so it created a really driven mentality. And I had that. I had that naturally. But um, as far as telling a ten year old to slow down, I think it's based on the ten year old. Um, but, um, help them look for something that is a slower pace that maybe they can really love. And that might take a lot of of digging and trying, trying new things to see what that, that kind of rest and relax activity would be for them. I feel like nowadays and I'm going to age myself, date myself here, but I feel like the way that parents slow a child down as to give them an iPad or a phone and go, okay, sit and do this for a second. But what what's interesting is I'm I'm thinking about that in my head is their brains are still going, that's not rest, that's physical rest, but it's not mental rest. And I feel like especially as a dancer, that is a very creative outlet. Your brain needed a rest on top of your body needing a rest. Do you feel like there was you needed more rest in in the mental side or the physical side or both? My body kept up really well. I lucked out and didn't ever have injuries or anything from from my years in ballet. So, um, my my body didn't. I don't feel like it needed a rest. It's still does does pretty well. I'm pretty blessed that way. Um, my mind is for sure what needed a needed a break, needed meditation, or needed breathwork, or needed some of these things that have only come into our vernacular in the last couple of years. Really? Um, you know, no one knew what breathwork was when I was a tiny child. I got told to breathe a lot because I would. I would panic and get really, like, wound up. But. But I think we've learned so much more about how important the breath is and how it is really good at slowing down your nervous system and your mind and how how important taking time like that is to reset your mind. Oh, I love that. Okay, we're going to definitely jump into that when we talk about what you do to help your clients. Because my brain jumped there really quickly and I'm like, no, no, let's talk ballet. Let's talk ballerina. So you went on and continued ballet until what age? I did it until I was 22. 21. What? The day I graduated college. Okay. You've got a degree in ballet. Is that right? I have a BFA in. In ballet. It's ballet performance. What are you using that for? I mean nothing and everything. It shaped me. It is. It is me. But I have never had a single person to ask for, for what your degree is. And we want certification that you really do have that that degree. No one, no one cares, right? Well, and you didn't go on and pursue more ballet. You didn't continue to teach ballet. You didn't continue to go on to Broadway or anything like that. It ended right there at the end of college. You were like, And I'm done. Why? I was burnt out my mind and like I said, my body was fine. It was. It was my mind. It was the pressure that comes in that, uh, ballet environment or in, in any performing arts where there is the, the cutthroat, um, audition gig workspace where there's not a lot of, um, stability or balance, um, or any kind of guarantee, which there's no guarantees in life. But it felt really unstable to me. It felt really scary to me. Um, and after four years in that pretty cutthroat environment, I was I was just ready to be be done and making money in a stable kind of non pressure environment, like a corporate or business world sounded really, really good to me at that point. So you went into corporate, did you give yourself any recovery time from school, ballet burnout specifically before you went into the corporate world? Recovery. Recovery time? No. Absolutely not. It didn't even occur to me that just wasn't even in my vocabulary at that time. It was it was full speed ahead and figure out how to pay your bills and live on your own. I was getting married straight out of college. It was bigger. Figure that all out. So, um. No, there was there was no break from from graduating. I went to I did teach dance very briefly as well as bartend and just I booked a bunch of jobs to try to make ends meet and then, um, straight to, to corporate when I got that opportunity. So there was no, there was no stopping pausing. There's no trip to to Europe to figure out what I really wanted or or even just give myself a second to breathe. Got it. Okay, so then the corporate world you ended up entertaining clients. What was your job in the corporate world? I worked for automotive. I was on the service and parts side of things, and I usually worked for, um, manufacturers. So, um, I was in the dealership world, but I was traveling all over the country. Or if I had a region in California, I was all over California. Um, And yeah, entertaining. Not really entertaining the clients. That's probably the wrong word, but it's sales. It's sales. So you are doing the dinners out, you're doing the drinks. Um, you're going to the big conventions and and doing a lot of professional partying. Yes. That's what sales are. Yeah. At that level, at that grander scale. Did you enjoy that kind of work. In the moment? Like like I said, it was, um, appealing. You got to drive all the newest cars that the manufacturers were coming out with. Um, you, you know, had a corporate expense card that you could, you could use to to get your job done. And, um, it was fun as a young, as a young adult to have some of those things. Um, until it, until it wasn't until I woke up and realized what it was doing to my body and my mind and, you know, never sleeping and and drinking that much just was the toll it was taking on me. Um, when I finally realized that maybe the fun, fun wasn't worth it. Or maybe it wasn't actually fun. Yeah, yeah, it sounds like it went from I. I'm doing this intensity and and then burning out from ballet into another intensity which you thrived and succeeded at for a while. And then did you hit a burnout again? Big time. Big time with that one? Yeah. Um, it was, uh, environment that was a little, a little toxic. There was. I was one of the only females, really. And, you know, I mean, a handful of us, but it was male dominated and there was just lots of stressors and, and pressure that came with that, that finally between that and the basically no sleep and and having to do, do what I did brought me to the point of to burn out. And finally, and my and my health. I couldn't ignore how sick I was anymore. What kind of sick were you? So I had it was it looked like strep throat to doctors, which is why they just kept me on antibiotics all the time. But it was Epstein-Barr virus. So basically I had pustules in my throat and could barely swallow, like monthly. That was just like, wake up. And oh yeah, I can't I can't swallow today. That's that's pretty normal. I was the point of getting antibiotic shots because antibiotic pills wouldn't do it, or wouldn't kick in fast enough to get me back, you know, on my feet. Um, so to not hospitalize me, they'd give me antibiotic shots. Um, and then, like I said, every infection I've just always from the time I was ten on, I felt like I caught every infection there was. So a UTI or a sinus infection or just there's always some random Infection where my body was just going down with all these different things that doctors don't really have an answer for. You have me thinking about one of my clients right now who is experiencing something similar, and I'm going, I need to investigate with Epstein-Barr. I've had Epstein-Barr. I got it in in high school and the craziest way possible. Uh, besides the pustules in the mouth, did you have any other symptoms that were showing up? Oh, I was chronically tired. I could sleep for days. And by the time I was getting out of corporate, I spent basically a year in my life pretty depressed, but also just sleeping because I was so tired. Like, that's literally all I could do, um, to let my body recover at all. That that was the number one thing it needed was, was rest and sleep. At this time, you're married, so you had support from your partner so that you could take the rest, right. Mhm. Oh Hallelujah. Thank you partner. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. That comes in handy. Yeah. So on the other side of. When did you get diagnosed. When did you finally find out this is Epstein-Barr. So at that point where I was starting to toyed with leaving corporate, I had moved to Seattle, um, and found started to work with naturopaths and some other herbalists and some other things that I was able to find in Seattle, um, which I was already working on things myself on the nutrition side. Um, but this opened my eyes to things like, like Epstein-Barr and the fact that I had had mono so many times as a kid meant I now had Epstein-Barr, or I had always had Epstein-Barr. And now, because of the stress and all these other influences, basically me not taking care of myself. I had reactivating Epstein-Barr virus, which is why it was monthly or every other month I was getting something, and the number one thing that would take me down is stress. If I it still will take me down. If I get stressed, that is when my EBV will reactivate. Yep, yep, there's a way through. There is a way through it. Uh, I'll have to share that with you after. I was. Done. Yes, because it does. Every time you get stressed out, things get reactivated. It's not necessarily at the same intensity, but it definitely is like, okay, now I need to go sleep for a day, and at some point you can't keep doing that because your life has to go on. People start to wonder, like, what is really going on for you? Is this really a health problem or is this a mental health problem? And unfortunately, those two things are tied together. Uh, but there is a way past Epstein-Barr. It doesn't have to continue to take you down. It took me many years to solve that one, and I'll share that with you when we're off. So you got past the crux of Epstein-Barr. Then what happened? You're out of the corporate world. Yeah. So then it was. I got out of corporate. Covid hit. I got out of corporate. I went back to school for my health coaching certification. Um, when Covid hit, that felt like a good time to, um, do what I had been toying with for a long time, which was the idea of actually getting my certification and turning this into a practice where I could where I could legitimately help people. Um, so got my my certification and left corporate, um, and started my business shortly after after a whole bunch of other things happened as well in my life. Um, which I can go into a little bit if you, if you want to go there, but. Well, I mean, it was Covid. Yeah. I mean, I feel like a lot of us. Everyone. Yeah. Yeah. So, so long story short, after after Covid and getting my health coaching certification, um, my marriage ended, I got divorced. Um, I left my, my house in Seattle, and I moved my whole life into a into a van, and I live permanently on the road. And then on top of all of it, I started my own health coaching practice. So. A full 180. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Okay, so the entrepreneurial life is stressful and a roller coaster ride. How's your roller coaster ride going? Uh, patience is the word I remind myself of. Daily. Daily. Um, because this is not a quick it's not quick for anybody and um, it's for I think it's put out there that there's overnight successes and people just wake up and decide to be something and have overnight success. And that's just not how it is, uh, for 99% of us. So I have to remind myself of that. Like I said, daily, um, be very patient with myself and with my business and, um, just not give up. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. All right, so you're in the health industry. What do you call yourself? I call myself a health coach, which I love and hate. And I can, um, because a lot of people call themselves health coaches and have a variety of backgrounds, and many health coaches have no certification or education around these things at all. Um, lots of MLMs call their their, um, people that work for the company a health coach, and they're pushing a product that's pretty specific and not necessarily helpful. So there's a lot of nuance. And, um. To group myself in with with everybody else, it's it's hard to find a way to stand out and actually, um, give people confidence that you do know how to help them. Um, so how do you make yourself stand out? Because there's this very specific thing I feel like you are doing that more people need to understand. Um. Tell me a little bit more about that. Um. You're. Well. So just simply from the health background, you have a very specific Realm of the world that you can help people with autoimmune issues, nutrition issues, just understanding how to slow down. So things seem. To be your your your niche in my niche. Yeah. So there is there's a lot of things I have, I have helped myself with and had to, had to go through, um, and deal with every, every day. Um, the pillars of my business are, are sleep and stress and nutrition and exercise. Um, so it's a really well-rounded approach to a whole healing, um, versus one diet or one product or, or one spaghetti throw at the wall thing that you just hope helps everybody. I recognize that everyone is completely individual. Bio individual is a term I use a lot with my clients. Um, and it's getting them to understand that I'm going to meet them where they are in whatever they're dealing with, um, and take into account their lifestyle, their, their culture, their habits, um, where they are and, and, um, what we can do to actually move the needle for them. And that what worked for the last client isn't going to work for them. So you're not a nutrition health coach. You're not a sleep health coach. You're not a personal trainer, health coach. You're you're all of those things. You're a holistic health coach. Yep, a holistic and health optimization. So my my goal is to optimize your health, not just to fix one thing or, or work with you for six weeks. And I'm going to let you backslide, but optimize your health to a point where it's it's optimized and with you for the rest of your life. There's a domino effect that I find with my clients when we work in all of those arenas. What's the first domino though? What are you experiencing with your clients? The first domino to fall that that makes them think about working with me. Um, not necessarily. Working with you, but it gets them moving forward with their health instead of in the stagnation that they probably are in when they come to you. It's it's a tiny step. It's when they see one thing, one thing works. So it can be what I feel like is, um, if you just read about it, you say, oh, I do that. I drink water, but it's like hydration and truly optimizing your hydration with electrolytes and super foods. Like, I'm a big proponent of chia seeds in your water. Um, and you do feel a difference in your body just when you get to the point of optimized hydration. And that gets their mind thinking, what else? What else is going to make me feel this better? And also shows them that they how it sounds bad about how bad they truly felt, because we don't understand our own baseline, and we don't understand that we're supposed to feel really, really good. I think so many of us think that feeling bad is just due to age and just normal, and just something we have to deal with. Um, and we don't recognize how much better we can feel. Right? I what I tend to say is every body is different, and I love that you meet your clients where they're at so that they can see just a small difference, a small step forward and go, oh, wow. Okay, I thought I was watering myself like a plant. And then come to find out, not actually. Oh that's beautiful. When it comes to exercise, what are you tending to help your people with for exercise? Weight training and I would scream it from the rooftops. Pick up heavy things, please. Pick up heavy things. So, uh. And women or women are so intimidated by by weights and, and don't want to get bulky. And I feel like there's been so much miscommunication about weight training and just the way it's been viewed for years and years and years, starting with Arnold Schwarzenegger. Like, like that is not weight training that that sport. So bodybuilding, right. Everyone needs weight training, strength training. There's so many different ways to do it. I live in a van and I have my TRX straps with me, and that is one piece of very light equipment that gives me a range of of load bearing exercises. So if I can do it in a van, I just I think that inspires my clients to know that they can do it with whatever they have available. And we take we take that approach. I love that. I love that again, meeting your client where they're at. That's beautiful, isn't it? Okay. Nutrition. You mentioned hydration. Do you lump that into your nutrition education with your clients? Absolutely. Yeah, yeah. Hydration is just the very first thing we start with because it's easy and it's the thing you consume the most of. If you aren't consuming the most of of water or things that are truly hydrating, you need to do something different. Um, so just because that's the biggest thing we consume, it's the most we put it in our body. That's where I start. Um, and then from there we go on to, um, like I said, a very personalized, individualized approach to their nutrition. Are they trying to change everything, their whole family's eating? Are they able to just do this for themselves? Do they have any support from their partner, or are they totally on their own to to change up what's in the house? Um, here we go from there. Nice. Yes. And I bet kids play a factor in that as well. The big okay. Oh, yeah. Yes I'm aware. When it comes to sleep. What's the first step? You're taking your your clients on. A few things to optimise their their bedroom space or their sleeping space. Getting rid of all the light and learning to sleep in a cave I call it. Is the number one thing regulating the temperature of your sleeping space. If you're sleeping in a really hot environment, you're not doing anything good for your sleep. Um, and then getting rid of screens, um, or limiting or modifying what you're doing with, with screens. So whether it's red, uh, blue light blocking glasses or turning them off at a certain time, getting them out of the bedroom, whatever tweak we can make that make sense for, for them. Yeah. I think one of the biggest education pieces that I give my people when it comes to this TV in the bedroom at falling asleep to the television thing, it's become a trend is that you're messing with your hormones. You're you're messing with your melatonin. We don't want to have to take melatonin because we're watching a television. We're messing with other hormones because your sleep quality is crap. So I love that you bring that one up and it sounds like you kind of. It's one of those push back points with your clients like, oh, I can't, I have to have the TV on. I know I've, I've heard it many times too with my clients and I'm just like, but it's not helping you, it's not helping you. And if you need noise, like noise isn't disruptive to sleep. There's white noise. There's I'm very into like these really long, boring lectures that, that, you know, if you can't stop your mind from racing, you need to, like, listen to something else like you can you can do that, but you can do, you know, Download it. Put your phone on airplane mode. Put it away from your bed and you can still hear that and it's not going to disrupt your sleep. I love the calm app, especially, uh, the Duke from Bridgerton and Jamie Fraser from Outlander. They both read stories to you. It's the best thing ever. You've got the Brit and the Scot and it's just amazing. I'm going to. Have to check that out. My heart, uh, that's that's what I like to fall asleep to sometimes if my husband can handle it. Really relaxing things like not reruns of The Office. But I've been there. I did that all through college. I get I get comfort TV, but not when you're trying to sleep for the night. No, no. Do it right before you go to bed or, you know, shut the TV off a half hour before you go to bed so that your brain has time to just let that mull through and then you can easily fall asleep, potentially, depending on where the rest of your hormones are at. And that lovely balance you brought up, you brought up temperature. Our bodies like to go through a cycle of cold, hot, cold throughout the night. I don't know that people know that. One of the tools that I've just recently discovered, and I'm super excited about it, because it's from a person who is in the industry. I used to be in the aerospace industry. He used to design the the astronaut suits for NASA. It's called the bed jet. And it's it's timed out for you specifically. And it does hot cold hot cold throughout the night. And it's it's using sheets and the same technology that they use in the astronaut suits to keep them warm when they're out in space and cold when they come back into the whatever system they're coming into, whether it's the ISS or Artemis or whatever vehicle. But oh my gosh, it's so cool. I'm super excited. We found that. Yeah, but I think women, especially where we, you know, depending on where again, where we're at in our timeline, if we're getting into our whys, years into the the change, the big menopausal change. Controlling heat and controlling cold is one of those necessities, absolute necessities. So I love that you bring up that that point. All right. The last piece of the puzzle that you work on, the the pillar that I am scared to ask, what do you do to help people reduce stress? Whatever. I can get them to do anything. Um, right, right. We all have at this point. We've all tried something. So if there's something they've tried, even if it was one yoga class, if they loved it or, you know, talk about it fondly, it's figuring out how do we get you back to that and get into some sort of consistent practice around that. Um, if it's just walking your dog every morning, how do we make that consistent? Um, if it's if it's breathwork for even five minutes, how do we do that? Here's the word consistently. So what can we consistently do. Because we are consistently stressing our bodies out. So we have to consistently give them back and try to get into a point of rest and reset, um, even for five minutes a day. I love that, Jeanette. This has been absolutely educational, beautiful. And I again, I can't stress how much I love that you meet your clients where they're at and then work on them in these four pillars so that they're not just getting a new workout to go and try. They're figuring out how to exist in this body and this density on this planet. Thank you. Thank you. Where can people find you on the internet? Everywhere. Um, Instagram is my main thing. It's dinette arm is my handle across the board. Um, and that will take them to my website. I do a free 30 minute coaching call and they can find me for me. Sweet. You guys take advantage. A free 30 minute call on these four pillars will probably enlighten you quite a bit. Danette. Thank you again. So thank you. Thanks for listening to spirit of an athlete podcast. If you're struggling with your own gut issues and want more direction, you can get an initial body scan from Amanda at Body Whisper Healing Comm. In 20 minutes, you can find out what's wrong. Okay, clarity map the path forward. You get on track to get back in your game. If this episode hits the spot, please let us know by rating, reviewing, and sharing it with a friend. Subscribe now to hear more inspiring stories from other female college athletes who overcame their health issues. Want more Amanda? 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