Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Houston, Texas. It’s time for Houston Business Radio. Now, here’s your host.

Trisha Stetzel: Hello, Houston. Trisha Stetzel here bringing you another episode of Houston Business Radio. It is my pleasure to have my guest on today who was introduced to me by John Brocato, who always introduces me to the most amazing people. I want to introduce you to Angela Kim. She is an Empowerment Coach, a Reiki Master Realtor, Illumines Core Core LLC, and D-town International LLC. Angela, welcome to the show.

Angela Kim: Thank you.

Trisha Stetzel: I’m so excited to have you on today.

Angela Kim: It’s so great to be here. I’m so nervous. I know me. Um, and I think I’m just just get to get it out and say it.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah, absolutely. So, Angela, we’re going to tackle some tough stuff today, right? Uh, but before we get there, tell us who you are.

Angela Kim: Well, um, I am a mom, um, of a nine year old boy, and he is turning ten in May, and, um, I am actually working on building an empire, both in real estate and in the mental health world. Um, and, uh, it just it all stems from my backstory. Who? You know, what I went through and where I came from, um, and experiencing the things that I experienced that really helps to shape who I am and how I’ve experienced life and how I can help people see life a little bit differently. So I think I just summarized myself.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah. No. That’s beautiful. And, uh, I love that you introduced yourself as mom first, right? Um, because you are. And I think a lot of times as women, we put everyone else ahead of us. And I think the thing we’re going to tackle today is our overworked nervous system, because we are always thinking about all of the other things. Right? And sometimes we have to stop and really assess ourselves and where we are and the things that we should be working on, um, internally and externally for ourselves. So why don’t we start with Angela? The whole idea of just being overworked. And as women, we are always caring for others. I like to talk about, um, putting our mask on first. You’ve been on a flight. Uh, listeners, anyone who’s been on a flight. You know, the flight attendant always tells us to put our mask on first before we help others. So, Angela, how does that play into the work that you’re doing on yourself and even the work that you’re doing with your clients?

Angela Kim: Um.

Angela Kim: Well, for me, the selfish slash unselfish thing is, you know, whenever I remind my clients, hey, or you have a habit of worrying about other people and worrying about this and that, and you forget about yourself, at the end of the day, there’s nothing left. And whenever I say that, I’m like, okay, let me check with myself. Have I been doing what I’ve been preaching and how am I implementing it? And so I really the the work that I do and how I coach myself constantly is really the work that is the work that’s constant because we have those dark, negative thoughts that come up, especially when we’re overworked. And we have, you know, we’re working from fumes. There’s nothing left. You know, there’s it. And I’m getting emotional right now because I’m seeing the pattern and the effects of an overworked nervous system, you know? Excuse me.

Trisha Stetzel: It’s okay.

Angela Kim: I have a hard time with it. And seeing my family members pass away from stress. Over and over. Um, it’s just like that constant reminder for me to really be self-aware and teach my my son and my clients how to learn that practice of self-awareness. And it’s it’s almost like back to basics of life, right? And how are your manners with yourself? How are you treating yourself? What are you saying to yourself? And that’s really what I do, is help people shift. And that’s why I call myself a paradigm shift advisor in that sense, is helping people to shift the the ways that they look at themselves in the different areas of their life. And so.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah, thank you for sharing that. And I appreciate you being so vulnerable today. And, you know, we’re always I think we should always be working on ourselves. And I think you as a coach are particularly special because you know what your clients are going through because you go through it as well. And I think that that’s something really special that you bring to the table. Um, do you want to talk a little bit about your backstory and why you do the work that you do?

Angela Kim: Yes.

Angela Kim: Um, I’ll start with my most recent backstory, and I think it kind of ties into my whole life story is, um, a few days before the pandemic is when I had my miscarriage, and it’s my first and hopefully only one. And that experience tore me apart. And it helped me realize that I had overcome PTSD, you know, trauma over and over again, not realizing that I did. Um. The miscarriage was a very somatic thing that happened. It was the trauma for my body. And. I had a challenging time coming to terms with the fact that while I had lived through, you know, high intense anxiety and, um, PTSD and, um, it just helped me realize that I had, um. I had complex PTSD. It was really hard to acknowledge and to accept that. Um, at first, because I was like, I’ve been doing this personal development work. I’ve been working on myself. I’m a coach, you know, I want to, you know, my background’s in mental health counseling. I’ve worked with soldiers. I’ve worked with schizophrenia patients. It’s nothing in that mental health area really scares me. And yet I was scared of myself.

Angela Kim: Mhm. Yeah. And I didn’t realize.

Angela Kim: You know, the trauma that I was experiencing at the time. Um, and why it was so hard. Why did my manners go away? You know, overnight. And so it was a challenge to accept that this new me was something that I get to work on. It’s a piece of work.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah. And how how important is it to know that the triggers. Right. Those things that are setting us off. So we’ve talked about our overworked nervous system, which started the conversation, and then leaning back into your backstory, which is not just overworked mentally, but your body. Right. Uh, was in a position and overworked from the miscarriage. What are some of the things that you worked on personally for yourself to move through that trauma, and even some of the things that you work with, with your clients as they move through trauma as well.

Angela Kim: Well.

Angela Kim: The I will say the the biggest lesson that I learned through this experience is my compassion, grace and patience. Um. And really deciphering, you know, is this person gaslighting or are they really saying that they are tired and that they’re really struggling, you know, and really hearing and feeling engaging where they’re at? Um, because I’ve been through the the challenges of PTSD and the complex PTSD. It it opened up everything that I worked on was, you know, as a younger child, my first suicidal thought was around 5 or 6. And that’s not normal, I realize. Later on in life that for a child to want to kill themselves at that age, it means that there’s a lot of trauma that I had gone through because my mom was very suicidal, and she would have a lot of threats about her life and just not wanting to be here, and it’s too much. And so that’s what I thought life was. But I overcame those things. And when PTSD from the miscarriage opened up complex PTSD, it just opened up everything. All my negative thoughts were roaring back because it was gone. You know, I worked on it. I, I tamed that part of myself. And it was almost like this, this thing where you want this change in your life. And so, hey, you’re going to really dig deep and really learn the nuances. What how to gauge your energy level, how to work with your nervous system, how to really calm yourself as much as possible. And it takes a lot of practice and a lot of, um, intention.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah, absolutely. So as you were doing this work on yourself, is that where you found the part of you who wanted to help others with the same challenges?

Angela Kim: Yes. Yeah.

Angela Kim: It’s, um, every time I go through a life stage or a life cycle or a loss in my life, it just helps me see another aspect of, okay, this is why I’m doing this, um, and this, this last miscarriage. And I’m still in the month of the anniversary. It was last week was the anniversary of my miscarriage? And I’m still going through it. Experiencing the loss of a child is very different from the loss of a parent. I’ve not lost a parent in the physical sense. Um, I’ve lost my dad who had a brain tumor. Um, and he had surgeries multiple times when I was in middle school. High school. So that’s building up to the traumas and the losses that I’ve experienced. And so I’m very considerate and compassionate when it comes to the energy of what people are saying because, um, I realize that I’m highly sensitive and that highly sensitivity came from a lot of the trauma that I experienced. Um, and so when I see another individual going through what I’ve been through and I see that I can understand. And I’m more compassionate when it comes to coaching my clients and when it comes to giving them that space to just be themselves and actually feel through that experience, whatever emotion it is that they’re feeling. It could be anger, it could be sadness, it could be depressive feelings. And it’s okay. It’s just that phase because it comes and goes. And as long as we allow them to feel and I allow myself to feel and acknowledge and accept that this is what I went through and that it was rough and it’s okay to experience it that way. Then the change and the movement forward and the healing, really, it’s like it catapults you. It’s faster than a domino effect.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah, absolutely. And I think that your the energy that you bring is perfect for the people that you work with. That because you’ve been there before them, you’ve walked in their shoes and you absolutely understand. So while we’re on the topic of energy, I want to talk about you being a Reiki master because not everybody may understand what that is. So can you talk about that just a little bit and how you use that in your practice as well?

Angela Kim: Okay.

Angela Kim: That’s a great question because Reiki Master, it’s the practice of working with the energy and really tuning into energies. And everybody has energy, right? This world is made of atoms. And so recognizing that we all feel and sense a shift in energy and space and then recognizing and tying it back to, hey, this is what makes us us. And if we think something, then we’re emitting it. And so the Reiki that I do, it’s a lot of energy work within the system of a person. Yet I’m actually working on their emotional system more than just what other Reiki masters do. Reiki masters that they probably teach more on how to treat and move the energy systems in certain organs and their different, you know, practitioners. Mine is specifically for the mind and the emotional bodies. And so it’s it’s really working with, okay, how can we move this emotion so that we can feel it instead of being numb or thinking that everything’s okay and, um, facing it and actually going through it instead. And so it’s I work with energy systems that way. I hope that explains it. I’m not really sure if I’m doing a good job of it.

Trisha Stetzel: Oh, I think it’s fantastic. And it goes along with everything that we’ve been talking about already. Right. Which is those, uh, the energy systems and the emotion and the way that you can feel people’s emotions. I think this all comes together, and I it’s a little interesting that you’re. Before we started recording, your dog came in the room, and you and I started talking about that, and then my dogs moved. And it’s not because we said anybody’s dog’s name. It was the energy that we, the two of us, were emoting into the room. Right. And our dogs picked up on it. And I think that’s really interesting. Your dog came in the room for a reason, and then mine woke up because we were having a conversation around that. Um, I’d love for you if people are really interested, Angela, in connecting with you and understanding more about what you do, your coaching practice, or even knowing more about your story, what’s the best way for folks to find you?

Angela Kim: I would say for right now, the best way is to reach me. Um, you know, what is it called? Message me on Instagram. Um, and it’s going to be at Angela Kim’s .111 and just message me and say, hey, I found you, found out about you. I heard about you through Tricia’s podcast, and that’s the best way.

Angela Kim: Yeah.

Trisha Stetzel: Fantastic. So Angela Kim 111 on IG and.

Angela Kim: .111.111.

Trisha Stetzel: Angela Kim .111 uh, is her handle on IG, and you guys can just put Houston Business Radio in there, or Tricia and Angela knows exactly how you guys found her. I really appreciate you sharing your story. Uh, Angela and I know there’s a lot of emotion around it. You work in this space of loss and trauma and holistic approaches to healing and, um, even core issues from lack of verbal communication and listening skills. Can we dive into that just a little bit? And this idea of the lack of verbal communication and listening skills between I’m guessing that that’s between people and helping others communicate better with each other?

Angela Kim: Yes. I mean, when I wrote that, it was actually more of how is it, how is it affecting across the board, across every, you know, with doctors, with yourself, with your spouse, with your kids? Um, well, we don’t really put much intention towards the way we communicate with the individuals around us or put much thought into it. We just say things and it doesn’t make sense to people. And sometimes lack of, you know, listening or lack of asking questions can create the miscommunication or misdiagnosis or, you know, if we don’t tell the doctor everything that’s going on, we’re like, well, you know, I want to tell you this because it’s embarrassing. Well, they’re there for a reason. You know, or parents are there for a reason. And parents don’t cultivate that with their kids that it’s safe for them to communicate with them instead of a judging, you know, stance that it’s that’s where people get complacent. And and my my point in all that is over time, the hurt and the even the trauma that builds up or the the resentment that gets built up in a lot of individuals or the mental health area in today’s world, I would say that it’s not knowing how to communicate what’s going on, not knowing how to prep people in, hey, this is going to be a an interesting conversation. Instead of just diving in and, you know, not having them as root when we speak and learning how to convey what our thoughts are. Most people are speaking and they’re only painting half of the picture, and we’re expecting others to understand and know exactly what we’re saying. Yet we’re not saying the whole thing.

Angela Kim: Right.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah, absolutely. And it as you were, as you were talking through that, I was thinking it may make someone suppress their feelings because they don’t feel like they have a safe place to communicate. They’ve never had that openness or someone like you that they can openly communicate with without judgment. Right. And I think that’s so important. I, I spend a lot of time on communication skills, typically in the office, uh, less in the personal space, but I know how important it can be, um, verbal and nonverbal. Right. As we communicate with other human beings. All right. So I’m going to go full circle back to this overworked nervous system. And I think that this, um, you talk in part of your write up, you talk about artificial stimulation. So is there some part of that that really makes our nervous system so overworked? I know there’s real things. There are things that we do and we get worried about and our kids and our families and our work, and. But is there some part of this artificial stimulation that’s causing some of that? And how do we know?

Angela Kim: Yes, the.

Angela Kim: Artificial stimulation that I’m referring to, it’s it’s like the media, the news, the the shows that we watch, uh, the people that we listen to, the people that we talk to or the books that we read, um, it’s Healthy to a certain extent, to trigger ourselves if we’re stuck and numb us to feel certain emotions. Because that’s where my my specialty in trauma and PTSD working with those comes into play. However. Oh, I just lost my train of thought.

Angela Kim: Oh my goodness. It’s okay. Yeah.

Trisha Stetzel: No worries. You were talking about we were talking about, uh, artificial stimulation. How all of this outside communication can really heighten. Right. The way we feel. Mhm.

Angela Kim: Yes. When I yes, I was talking about getting triggered. Right. So when we get triggered, um, a lot of times in my coaching practice, I encourage my clients who tend to have a tendency of numbing their emotions out and not really recognizing that there’s something bothering them, that they’re not realizing that they’re behaving or reacting in certain ways. And so I encourage them to use artificial Stimulation to trigger certain emotions. Those are helpful. Yet the unhelpful side of it is when people are watching a lot of horror movies or they’re watching, you know, a lot of war movies or documentaries. Those are helpful. Yet too much of anything, you know, anything in this world, you know, is unhealthy, unhealthy and unhelpful. And so that’s where I was saying the artificial stimulation is creating the heightened. The body’s the mind’s still overstimulated. Right. So the body is going to be working and it’s going to be in fight or flight while you’re watching the movie and you’re not realizing that every little bit adds up. It’s almost like every little compliment that we give a child. It helps them to be confident and boost them, and it helps them grow. And it’s nourishment and the things that we every little bit that we, you know, chip away at our shoulders and chip away at our heart and or the traumas that we watch. That’s it does the same thing. And so that’s the artificial thing that I was talking about.

Angela Kim: Yeah.

Trisha Stetzel: No. So I see both sides of it where it can be good for healing if done purposeful. Right. Uh, but on the other hand, if we’re just filling our brains. Uh, listen, I am not a news gal. I hate having the news on because I feel like it just. It heightens my stress. So when I go in the house, I’m like, mom, turn the TV off. Let’s put something else on. Right. Because I think there’s so much outside. Um, I don’t in my head it’s arguing, right? No. I’m right. No. I’m right. No. I’m right. So I, I want to tackle one other thing because I, it comes up a lot with, uh, women that I work with, which is comparison. So I’m using social media as an example. A lot of us will get on social media and scroll, and most, most people on social media are only telling part of the story. So I’m just kind of bringing this full circle right around some of the things that we suppressed, the things that we aren’t communicating, we’re only communicating the good. But then I maybe sit alone and scroll through and then compare myself to all of the people who are amazing and beautiful and doing amazing things. So what are your thoughts around the whole idea of comparing myself or ourselves to others on social media?

Angela Kim: Mm.

Angela Kim: That’s a rough I mean, that’s comparison is ah, it’s actually one of the key things that I, I work on with my clients. Um, because how can we compare, you know, how can we compare that person’s progress or that person’s accomplishments or their looks. If you have no idea what they’ve done to get to that.

Angela Kim: Point.

Angela Kim: Or what it took, right. The discipline is something that people don’t really see on the backside and the comparison. Again, it’s a very self-defeating habit. And these are just habits, right? The habit of overthinking, the habit of comparing, the habit of worrying. So these are the things that I really work on with my clients especially. While I work on it with both male and female clients. Right. It’s just my words. I use them a little bit differently, so it works well with that population. And so women worry and then men they just think mhm.

Angela Kim: Yeah absolutely.

Trisha Stetzel: So I’d really be curious to know who I know. Who some of your clients or potential clients might be. But I also know that many of them may have been through something that, um, they’re scared to have a conversation with someone about. So what words do you have for those people who are listening to the show today that might just need to have a conversation with you? What are your words for them today? To let them know that it’s okay just to reach out and have a conversation with you?

Angela Kim: The word.

Angela Kim: Honestly, there’s I can just say that no matter what we do or what they have done or what they’ve gone.

Angela Kim: Through.

Angela Kim: Or lack thereof. Right. Because sometimes we judge ourselves more harshly than anyone else. And so, um, I would say if somebody who is a believer of God or the universe, it’s look inside of you because that’s where you can find that God or that universe. And so it takes you sitting with someone who can actually just accept you for what you’ve done and who you’ve been, and then help you recognize that for you right now is someone who gets to be loved and heard and seen.

Angela Kim: Mhm.

Trisha Stetzel: I love that. Angela, thank you for being here today. Being vulnerable, talking about working on yourself. We all need to be working on ourselves all of the time and really understand the triggers and where that’s coming from. I’d love for you to share as we finish up today a success story, either your own or one that you’ve had with a client.

Angela Kim: Um.

Angela Kim: I think right now you can see that I’m my success story. However, I have a client that is very near and dear to me. Um, I actually keep in touch with all of my a lot of my clients that I’ve had. Um, they’re a former Olympic wrestler in Hawaii and former for a reason. They had a traumatic brain injury not once, but multiple times.

Angela Kim: Mhm.

Angela Kim: Um, so, you know, when you’re in the Olympics, that’s like your dream, that’s your sport, that is your passion. That is what you live for right. And so it’s almost like my sport of coaching and working with people’s mental state. This individual was working on their physical mental everything. So when they went through the traumatic brain injury. They were pushing themselves way harder than they should have. The first time it happened and they came to me at the last, almost like at the last resort. The their family member. Nothing was working. Therapy, treatments, the, um, the cell treatment, neural stem cells. Those weren’t working. Nothing was really helping. And they finally gave me a chance to work with him. And I said, let’s work with you from the basic, from bottom up. This is rehabilitating because rehabilitation comes with a lot of acceptance and just realizing, okay, this is my new name. How can I take what has happened to me and transform it into something that I can help others, you know, do better the next time? Around because he’s now coaching other wrestlers. He has his own gym now and he’s passionately helping other students. You know, the kids that he’s coaching and how to take care of themselves, how to work on their mental, emotional and physical state because there’s that, that soul part of your passion. Right. And learning how to shift that around from pain to purpose.

Trisha Stetzel: That’s beautiful. Angela, thank you so much for being with me today. It’s been a joy to have you on the show. And again, I appreciate your vulnerability telling your story, and I would love for people to connect with you if they’re feeling that energy from you. So how do you want people to connect with you?

Angela Kim: Thank you.

Angela Kim: Must connect with me through, um, the Instagram and just reach out that way. And uh, Angela Kim .111.

Angela Kim: One.

Angela Kim: And just message me there and say, hey, I found you out through Trisha’s podcast. Um, and it’s called Houston Business Radio. And so just let me know that you heard about my story and it it resonated with you. And, um, let’s have a chat. So thank you so much, Trisha.

Trisha Stetzel: Thank you. I appreciate you very much for being here. So Angela Kim 111 on Instagram. I’ll have all of her other social channels available for you in the show notes, so that you can just point and click if you’re sitting in front of your computer. Angela, thank you again for being with me today. That’s all the time we have for today’s show. Join us next time for another exciting episode of Houston Business Radio. Until then, stay tuned, stay inspired, and keep thriving in the Houston business community.