Hi, I'm Carleen

Founder, Integral Master Coach, Mom, Spouse, Recovering HR Professional and coffee lover!

Helping people navigate the complex systems that make up organizations really spoke to me; after I completed my B. A. at the University of Manitoba, I went back to school to pursue the field of Human Resources.
I enjoyed my work in HR, and took into it my belief in hard work (which had supported me successfully through school); but here that belief failed me.  I ran into the reality that companies would let me work as long as I wanted; 50, 60, 80-hour weeks, for as long as I could do it.  I had the opportunity to help some amazing people and support some incredible organizations, but none of it made a lasting difference. 

The organizations I worked for would evolve, or fail (eliminating or outsourcing HR), and I would be out of a job. Along the way an all-consuming focus on my work and career meant my health suffered.

A chronic disease I had been managing since my late teens started calling the shots.
Call it my “dark night of the soul”, something had to give.  This is where I tell you I turned it around, and I did.  It took me years, and was a longer, harder journey than it needed to be because I thought I had to do it all myself; I didn't invest in my well-being and I didn't ask for help.

I so believed that working hard would see me through that I didn’t see the truth.  Because I didn't invest I'm my well-being, when I did see the truth (that I was risking my physical health & emotional well-being), I did not have the tools to change.

THE TRUTH

So here is my truth.  Until I learned to value myself in my work, set up healthy boundaries and stop over-committing emotionally, I couldn’t have the impact I was killing myself to achieve. I was working hard to mask my perceived deficiencies based on another belief; I was not enough.  I had lost the connection to myself. Here's the really painful part – it wasn’t the work doing this to me, I did this to myself.   Organizations are not saints, and many exploited my work ethic, but they did so without knowing I was making decisions based on fear, not on choice.  My mask looked like confidence.  Nothing changed at work until I learned to love and value myself.

When I learned to love and value myself, everything I had worked so hard for (a meaningful, purposeful, healthy, fulfilling life), found me.

Your working life story may be different from mine. But if you have hit a wall and don’t know how to get to a place where you quit hitting that same damn wall, stop. 

Deep breath. 

​This is expressly what the coaching process was designed for, purpose built to help you connect to what is meaningful to you.  Gently supporting you as you build the tools you need to overcome whatever is holding you back from living your one beautiful and precious life with meaning and well-being.
I founded Love Your Working Life because we're all in this together (and none of us are getting out alive). 

I help busy professionals tired of holding competing commitments together find ways of integrating career, life and emotional well-being.

Helping my clients to create a work life they can love.
As a result of working with me, my clients more deeply connect to their calling with clarity and purpose, investing their one beautiful and precious life in work and ways that are meaningful to them. 

I am looking to work with individuals who would like to connect their work, themselves and all the people who depend on them in healthy ways that support their emotional well-being.

Who do you know that would benefit from working with me?