Transcription:

I’m Coreen Lawrence. I’m a mediator, facilitator, coach/mentor. I am a mother, sister, daughter. I am a friend to many but above all of that I am a friend to myself. 

In 2008, I developed the first version of what is now Values Based Living OR VBL.

Just before having my daughter, I found myself navigating some very tricky situations, relationships and personalities. 

And what each of these external forces had in common is that they had no interest in what I needed. I was feeling lost, feeling helpless and victimized. I had lost my self-identity and lost my way in knowing how to make changes in my life that were necessary. 

Even therapy wasn’t providing the specific and tangible results I needed. New Age self-help books weren’t helping me to manifest the positive change that each $30 book promised! 

And the problem is that I was surrounded by assholes and surrounded by unsupportive relationships. I couldn’t “self help” my way out of that. Let me be clear…they weren’t necessarily bad people, they were just not what I needed at that time in my life. 

So I turned to the skillset that I know that brings order to chaos – conflict resolution skills. But the challenge remained that I couldn’t negotiate in good faith with the external forces that had no interest in my life. 

I realized that I was in life long relationships with high conflict personalities that had no interest, or even genuine capacity in understanding what I needed and had even less of an interest in trying to meet those needs. 

I was in this alone.

So I worked with what I had. I Frankensteined the conflict resolution skill set of value identification, listening skills, communication skills and I turned my curiosity to the internal conflict that I was experiencing and I became my own coach. 

I spent time discovering which of my values were being frustrated learning how to satisfy those values. I created self-discovery. I moved that knowledge into discovering what I DO want and what I DO NEED. 

In short, I created a process to listen to and understand myself. 

In that process, I was delighted to find that it became less and less important that others listen to me and understand me. I was fulfilling that need for myself. 

And what happened felt miraculous to me. I could release from the victim mentality that others were letting me down or holding me back. I could find assertive language to say what I wanted and needed. 

And it was easier for the people around me to help and support me and when they still chose not to, that was the information that I needed to make the decisions that needed to be made.

Knowing my triggers gave me emotional distance from those goddamn hot buttons. I was clear again in who I was and what I stood for. 

And I realized that I had created something special that I could replicate and teach to others, specially tailored to their unique value sets. 

I created a coaching/mentoring program that I launched as one-on-one coaching, which had tremendous success for my clients!

And now I have partnered with Ali Ansell who is exceptionally talented in so many ways, but is also a conflict resolution specialist or mediator,  and is similarly devoted to self-awareness as an ongoing process. 

Together we have built a series of workshops in the Values Based Living Program, which is a step-by-step system or How – To guide for creating and living a Values Based Life regardless of the utter chaos of the world around you. 

And that begins with the Know your values workshop that is the prerequisite to all VBL workshops.