Eileen Lenson

How to Move Through Adversity

Ep. 84 - Eileen Lenson knows how to move during adversity. As a best self-development-and encouraging podcast of a successful female entrepreneur, Eileen Lenson is a social worker who has spent her entire professional career helping people develop coping skills for times fraught with adversity. Eileen spent 20 years of her career practicing in medical and psychiatric hospitals. She leveraged her academic training and professional experiences into a private psychotherapy practice emerging as an entrepreneur with a life and business coaching practice. Eileen shares how she has helped people facing different types of adversities find a purpose to move forward and not allowing their emotions destroy them. She shares how her upbringing shaped her into a compassionate person.

Top Takeaways:

- How to teach your children compassion.
- How to rise above your grief and move forward to avoid a downward spiral after adversity.
- The painful and hard journey of moving forward that you must learn to take.
- Defining the change needed to find yourself and more joy after losing it in adversity.
- The signs of pain and "suicide thoughts" that parents and teachers should look for in teenagers.
- How to reevaluate your values and beliefs to find your passion.

Listen to find how to discover your own passion.

"We are all capable beautiful people but if we can stop that critical voice, then it opens up a freedom to find more things that we have passion for."

She credits her dad's advisory that "the world did not revolve around her and her siblings" with the refrain that "many people are not as fortunate as you". This gentle reminder was cemented in her spirit and propelled her into a life and career working to help others to act to improve upon their condition.

She now has a life and business coaching practice and is a Board Certified Coach. She assists businesses with motivation, culture building, direction, focus, time/stress management and conflict resolution.

Eileen has authored two books; Overcoming Adversity: Conquering Life's Challenges, and Succeeding in Private Practice: A Business Guide for Psychotherapists. She occasionally writes articles on mental health related topics for a variety of magazines, newspapers and blogs, including her column entitled 'Life According To Lenson.'

Eileen has presented papers at national and international conferences on topics related to overcoming adversity. She taught ethics at George Washington University Medical School. She has also been a guest on radio stations, speaking on issues including divorce, aging and murder. In addition, she provides seminars, workshops, and talks on adversity related topics.

Listen in to learn how you can use companionship or other strategies to address your pain and find your joy once again.

Key Moments:

Eileen describes her childhood- growing up with compassion as taught by her father. [3:13]
People's inability to cope well with adversity regardless of whether they have done it before (or not) and acquiring the skill of coping with it. [5:00]
Eileen shares stories of some of the most difficult cases she has encountered and how the victims overcame to move on. [7:34]
Learning how to manage your feelings and thoughts to find a way to move forward. [10:38]
Advice on self-kindness and forgiveness, especially when it comes to mistakes of a marriage. [11:56]
The difficult era of social media, how it is affecting our teenagers, and how parents should approach this challenge. [14:22]
Signs that parents should look for in teenagers that indicate hurt and contemplation of suicide. [16:02]
How to change and find the self that we had lost along the way - the story of the physician who found himself again. [17:28]
Eileen explains how you can reexamine who you are to discover your passions that are deep within. [20:31]
Just, how does she conduct her life coaching sessions? [22:15]
The reasons for writing her book on adversity. [23:09]
Her advice to younger people who are embarking on their lives today. [25:28]