Meet Whitney Walker

We recently connected with Whitney Walker and have shared our conversation below.

Whitney , we’re thrilled to have you sharing your thoughts and lessons with our community. So, for folks who are at a stage in their life or career where they are trying to be more resilient, can you share where you get your resilience from?

Reading the word resilience I immediately think of its counterpart, tenacity. It reminds me of the saying, “if you have a strong enough WHY you can bear any HOW.” I consider tenacity to be the why and resilience to be the how. Once you find your goal and passions, you will push through any obstacles to achieve it. I haven’t always had the most graceful acts of resilience, yet I’ve been able to pull it out of me to achieve what I had my sights set on. Being resilient means to stand back up when you have fallen, time after time. As I alluded to, I haven’t always been one to jump right back up, shake it off, and keep going. In my life when I’ve been knocked down, I’ve often stayed down for awhile. Complained, whined, kicked & screamed, and resisted suggestions on how to do things differently to succeed. Yet eventually I did get back up and try again. Resilience doesn’t always have a specific timeline. It just means that you keep moving forward towards your goal despite setbacks. Beyond using my tenacity and determination to be resilient in work and professional matters, I also had to learn to be resilient in personal areas as well including with mental health issues and disorders. As a therapist this is obviously a major focus in my life, yet showing resilience in this capacity can be the most difficult. I struggled for 20 years with an eating disorder and the absolute fatigue, frustration, and futility involved in trying to overcome it was exhausting to say the least. Yet I developed a strong sense of resilience to not lose hope and keep working towards health and inner peace. Which I’m now able to guide others towards because I stuck with my fortitude to get better and have a healthy relationship with my body and food. Resilience comes in many forms and I believe I’ve had it from a young age. Yet like a muscle my greatest and heaviest challenges have strengthened and build that muscle over time to what it is today.

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?

My professional work is as a Mental Health Therapist where I get to flex my muscles and gifts as a healer. The beauty of this is coming full circle from being lost in my own struggle and suffering, fearing there was no hope, to helping others escape from their personal prisons. As a whole I would say that my mission statement for what I’d like to give back to the World is guiding people in breaking through the self imposed prisons they’ve created for themselves to experience true freedom and peace in life. Realizing this purpose was apart of my spiritual path. Spirituality is now the foundation of all the work I do. In addition to being a therapist I created Women Waken, a podcast and community that focuses on inspiring and guiding women to heal, align, and rise to their highest expression and experience of life. I started my podcast 4 years ago and have interviewed hundreds of amazing individuals sharing their unique ideas and paths towards this greater sense of freedom and peace. With over 400 episodes published so far, my intention for the podcast is to offer a resource for those who are lost and provide many different options to choose from on their own life path towards healing. My next chapter will be taking my work offline and in-person to be a speaker, traveling the World and sharing the messages that I think could offer comfort, inspiration, and to many.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

The three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that have been most impactful on my journey have been learning from personal experience, seeking guidance and support from trusted sources, and studying/ learning about the spiritual means of growth, healing, and thriving as well as other’s experiences and stories. I would highly recommend everyone who is on their journey to ask themselves these questions: where have you been, where are you now, and where do you intend to go? This allows you to take a deep look into how your past has shaped you, what your focus and desires are now, and what you want to do next? The answers to these questions are what facilitate awareness, healing, strengthening, and growth.

How would you spend the next decade if you somehow knew that it was your last?

I would go full throttle on what I’m already doing now. Currently I live nomadically and have been for over 4 years. I’ve travelled all over the country and lived in many different states meeting all kinds of people, new friends, and exploring the vast beauty that this continent holds. Yet I feel this domestic portion of my vagabond life is complete and the next step is to take it internationally. Therefore, if I knew I ONLY had 10 years to do it, I would buy my ticket right away and get started! Keeping a few weeks before take off to make plans and book travel/accommodations. I actually already have this mindset, however, because I just turned 40. I’ve been thinking a lot about what I want to accomplish and do is this next decade of my life before I hit 50. And it involves World travel, writing, speaking, and bringing people together. So, here we go, bon voyage! And of COURSE it goes with out saying that if I only had one decade left I would be in close contact with my closest friends and family members as much as possible (and hopefully travel with them), take things slowly, release fears, spend a lot of time with animals, savor every meal, every hug, every moment, every second. Yet I’m already aiming to do that everyday now, with many decades left to go.

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