#161 She Built 400 Steps and Found Her Voice

Today, I interview Patty de Vries, who grew up in a challenging environment where she felt the weight of constantly meeting expectations, pushing herself to succeed while disconnecting from her own needs.

She learned early on to stay quiet and observe, taking her mother’s saying, "children should be seen and not heard," to heart. She also pushed herself to meet high expectations as an athlete, training with intensity from a young age. This drive helped her achieve success, but it came at a cost, as she often ignored her own physical and emotional needs.

Much later in life, a severe back injury forced her to slow down and reconnect with herself. This physical setback gave her the time and space to reflect, reconnect with nature, and rediscover a deeper connection with her body and spirit, breaking free from the old patterns that had kept her silent.

Today, Patty shares what she’s learned about letting go of expectations, listening deeply, and finding her true voice. She encourages others to break free from old patterns, reconnect with their authentic selves, and embrace the energy that moves through every cell of their being.

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As the Chief Experience Officer at Living Well USA, Patty de Vries has dedicated her life to guiding individuals and teams toward meaningful transformation. With a background in psychology, a distinguished athletic career at Stanford, and decades of experience in wellness leadership, including roles at Stanford University, she blends science, spirituality, and practical wisdom to help people align their thoughts, energy, and actions with their true potential.

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Find Patty here:
https://livingwellusa.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/pattydevries/

https://www.facebook.com/pattypurpurdevries

https://www.youtube.com/@livingwellusa

https://www.instagram.com/livingwellca/

Transcript

Transcript of Interview

Find Your Voice, Change Your Life Podcast

Podcast Host: Dr. Doreen Downing

Free Guide to Fearless Speaking: Doreen7steps.com

Episode # 161 Patty de Vries

“She Built 400 Steps and Found Her Voice”

(00:00) Doreen Downing: Hi, Patty. This is a wonderful experience to be able to drop in and have a conversation with you. You're a brand-new friend to me in the mindfulness community. I love that.

(00:15) Patty de Vries: I love that we are on this journey together and supporting each other. That's one of my passions.

(00:21) Doreen Downing: Yes, well, you sent me a bio, and I want to start there before we get into your story.

As the Chief Experience Officer at Living Well, USA, Patty de Vries has dedicated her life to guiding individuals and teams toward personal and professional transformation. With a background in psychology, a distinguished athletic career at Stanford, and decades of experience in wellness leadership, including at Stanford University, she masterfully integrates science, spirituality, and practical wisdom to help people align their thoughts, energy, and actions with their highest potential.

I want to say highest, highest, highest potential, and potential is just so deep, complex, beautiful, and possible. I love that word—potential.

(01:28) Patty de Vries: It's a beautiful word. Everything about it radiates opportunity, and that's one of the reasons I really love it.

(01:36) Doreen Downing: Yes. The other thing that came out while reading your bio just now, which I hadn’t really connected with before, is the way in which wellness seems to be the thread.

(01:52) Patty de Vries: When I was a child, I grew up in North Dakota—a very different place from California. I love my roots. My daughter, grandson, and son-in-law now live there, but I grew up in a world where people weren’t always healthy.

My dad struggled with alcoholism. My mom struggled with her weight, type 2 diabetes, and a mood disorder of some kind. I learned very early on that I didn’t want to suffer. I didn’t want to be an unhappy person in the world because I also saw what it did to other people.

When my mom was unhappy, she lashed out. When my dad was struggling, it impacted all of us. So, I set out on a journey to really understand myself in a different way so that I could show up more consistently.

(02:48) Doreen Downing: Well, that really puts a start on our conversation, going back to those early moments. Here you are, you pop out into the world, into this particular family.

Isn't it amazing that you're going, "I'm observing something that I don't like or I don't want to be?" But you still had to be impacted.

And because we're talking about voice—having a voice—what was it like either having or not having a voice in that family dynamic?

(03:31) Patty de Vries: There were secrets, there were traumas, and there was a suicide that no one talked about. Counseling just didn’t exist in our family. It was an era when you just didn’t talk about your family problems. You didn’t air your dirty laundry.

That could be painful because there were times when things happened within the family, and I would go to school and just have to hide it, just quietly absorb it. For lots of years, I felt quieted. I think one of my mom’s favorite sayings was that children should be seen and not heard. I took that very literally.

Being seen and not heard served me well in some ways. And I do want to say that, though I wouldn’t choose this for any child, I did learn something from it. Children being seen and not heard meant that I listened.

(04:34) Doreen Downing: I was going to say that because I learned that too.

This is fantastic. I’m so glad you’re opening that up as an opportunity—there was something about listening. Say more?

(04:47) Patty de Vries: The listening, the watching, the observing, the feeling. At some point, I lost touch with the feeling. As an athlete, I was expected to show up and be my best every day. And again, you didn't talk about it. That was the problem. Unless you were injured and couldn't go out on the field, you showed up. You did your best.

I remember in high school, we would do box jumps, and I was the only girl for many years. I started training at 12 years old and petitioned the district to let me lift weights with the boys. I had to keep up with them, which meant I didn’t have an off day, and I had to work really, really hard.

I remember specifically these things called box jumps. We had to jump up onto a box, and this wasn’t just a few inches high—these were a couple of feet. Not only did we have to jump up onto the box, but we were also carrying plates, like 25-pound plates. I don’t remember exactly what I carried, but at the time, I was really strong.

So, we had to jump repeatedly onto these high boxes with weights in our hands, which meant we couldn’t use our arms for balance. We were weighted down. I used to fall a lot. My shins were bloody, bruised, scraped up, with scabs all over them.

I was a cheerleader at the time because I was desperately trying to prove that I was feminine, even though I was a weightlifter. My nickname was "Brute." So, there were a lot of things at play that I was trying to balance and understand.

I also had a coach who was very controlling. Like anything, you don’t see it coming at first. I was 12 years old and so excited to be part of something I was really good at. I didn’t see the gradual shutting down of anything that didn’t align with what he had to say.

It wasn’t until I went to Stanford that I was told to question everything. That was a really good thing. I didn’t start questioning immediately, though. I still listened a lot. I contained my emotions the best I could because I didn’t know how to manage them.

Eventually, it took me until my forties, even early fifties, to really understand who I am at my core and to be proud of that person. Before that, it was always about showing up and doing something—competing, creating, polishing, finishing, or cleaning something. It was never about who I was.

(07:23) Doreen Downing: Yes. Thank you. I’m going to get to that waking-up point pretty soon, but I want to stay a little bit longer with the way you’re opening up about what it was like to both not have a voice and yet also develop this ability to tune in to what’s happening around you.

Especially what you talked about with the coach—just feeling like you’re, I was going to say, in a box.

(07:59) Patty de Vries: He had his expectations. I was his first female athlete, and he was on his own journey. I can see now that he did the best he could, but it was a very controlling, very limited way for me to experience the world.

I don’t regret it. It was a chance for me to listen and observe, like I said. I saw the impact of somebody’s energy on an entire team—not just on me. I would see what happened when he would literally scream at me or get upset over any little thing. I would watch the men, who were just young boys at the time, and they didn’t even know how to react. They would sort of pull back because the energy in the whole place shifted.

If my coach was in a bad place, everyone knew it. And now, looking back, it’s clear to me that people who don’t understand their energy, their power, or their voice can end up projecting all of that onto those around them. That’s unfortunate because those of us who are sensitive to that energy tend to withdraw and move away.

(09:17) Doreen Downing: Yes. Well, I'm struck by the way you take situations like the one you're just describing with this coach and have a perspective.

You look back and you comb through it in a way, and you pick out really good nuggets for life. That's what we'll probably move into pretty soon—about you as a person, as a coach, as your own way of being in this world, and how you help others process stuff that is unpleasant and yet bring out what is more possible for people.

I don't know how to say this, but it's wonderful getting to know the details of some of these stories. Before I move on, any more stories about the ways in which you were quieted? I like that phrase. I haven't quite heard it. You were "quieted." I've heard, "You were silenced." Anything else come up about how you were quieted?

(10:33) Patty de Vries: Only that other people might not have seen me as quieted. Like I said, I was a cheerleader. I was in the National Honor Society. I was in student government at our school, and I spoke fine.

Even as I grew my first business, I spoke at a lot of events. I spoke at conferences. I spoke a lot at Stanford about wellbeing, and I taught wellbeing, but it was a defined way of being. It was more about who the world expected me to be.

I’ve lost relationships since I shifted that, and I know we’re going to talk a little bit about the shift, but I became this person who was just agreeable to everyone.

(11:26) Doreen Downing: Mm-hmm.

(11:27) Patty de Vries: It served me. I built a wonderful business by not making waves because I had a lot of energy to put toward things like that. But I was very careful not to make waves, not to disagree. The customer was always right. And again, all those things served me.

I do believe it could have still served me to have my voice, to be healthier, and to have done the same things even better.

(11:52) Doreen Downing: Yes. As I listen to you today, I almost see a mirror, and it really touches me to see some of my own journey reflected back.

It also helps me, just listening to you, to tap into the strength of what I learned as a quieted person. Becoming a psychologist is all about listening. It’s all about deep listening, right?

Yes, I also moved through high school, being out there as head of the cheerleaders, a homecoming queen, but behind the facade, there was something different. That’s something I spoke about last week at our mindfulness conference—that even with my PhD, I felt like I was hiding.

Somewhere along the line, you got clear that you were hiding or that there was something more. How did that happen?

(13:04) Patty de Vries: For me, the real transformation happened since COVID. My dad had died the year before, and my back had gone out. I couldn't walk for a few weeks, and then I ended up walking hunched over for about nine months until I had surgery in January of 2020.

I reluctantly had the surgery. I thought maybe I could heal it myself, but that wasn't happening, and it certainly wasn't going to happen with the focus I had at the time on my role at Stanford. I gave everything to that role. It’s not that I wasn’t taking care of myself, but my full focus was really on that work.

When my back went out and I had the surgery, I was on disability for six weeks. I still called in, even got reprimanded a few times because I couldn't help myself.

Then COVID hit. I only went back to work for a few days, maybe a week, before we were all sent home. I couldn't get rehabilitation for my back surgery. I had four pins, and a metal plate put in, and I couldn’t go to physical therapy.

So, I walked. I walked on the land, and the longer I walked, the more I realized I needed better trails so I wouldn’t slide down the hill. I put in stairs. I built over 400 steps on the property. I pulled weeds for literally hours—hours and hours each day.

My husband even joked at one point that he thought I might be seeing someone down the hill. There’s nobody down the hill, of course, but I would leave from sunrise to sunset, just feeling this calling to be on the land.

In the forest, I felt completely at peace. There is no judgment in the forest. The trees aren't judging me, and I'm not judging the trees. There’s nothing to judge, except to remember our equilibrium, to remember who we were before our thoughts and judgments took over.

The more I listened, the more I understood the sanctity of my body, my spirit, and that connection. I reconnected with the part of my body that had been told not to feel, not to find pain, not to let anything interfere with the job at hand.

I realized what a lie that was and how ineffective it was for my happiness. I was actually living a really amazing life. I was at a director level at Stanford, directing several wellness programs, participating in research teams, and helping develop a model of professional fulfillment.

Like everything on paper looked beautiful, and yet I struggled. I struggled with this constantly. It was never enough.

At one point, I even thought, "My life has been great. If I die right now, I’m good, but please don’t make me live another 30 years. I don’t even know what to do." It was almost like boredom set in. It was like, "Okay, now what do I need to accomplish? I don’t want anything more, but I have to do something to keep myself engaged."

Then this whole idea of neuroplasticity and neuro-literacy came up—the idea that we can create our reality through our thoughts and change our perception of the past.

I became a course facilitator for a class called Creating a Life of Consequence at Stanford University, developed by Roderick Kramer. I literally couldn’t believe it—I cried a few mornings while reading people’s papers and seeing the transformations they were having.

I felt this freedom to speak in spiritual, energetic terms with many of my students, and it was amazing. I felt so free to start focusing on that energetic, spiritual side, which to me are intertwined. I believe the energy inside of us comes from spirit. Every cell in my body is alive with energy, and it’s up to me to let that loose.

(17:21) Patty de Vries: Really just getting in touch with that. I know I might have sounded a little crazy to a few of my friends, especially in the business world. We had these ideas, and then all of a sudden, they were like, "Yeah, I think I’m going to do something else."

I could sense that quiet discomfort with the energetic realm. At first, it stung a little. It was like, "Wow, I really thought we had this spiritual, energetic connection, and that they understood me." Then to realize that it wasn’t like that.

But that’s okay. We didn’t end the relationship. It simply shifted, and I was able to say, "You know, we’re going to come back on the journey." I don’t end relationships. I simply let them drift away, and they almost always come back.

(18:09) Doreen Downing: Yes. Well, where you started with the journey into the land and how that infused you with a growing, a waking up, and a nourishing—that was a beautiful image of you spending so much time literally on the earth and what you got from it.

But the other thing I noticed is what we were talking about earlier—listening. There wasn’t a lot of noise. You just listened. You didn’t have your distractions, your activity, your drive. You just had your beingness, and that seemed to start to grow there.

I’m going to take a brief break and be right back because I have some other questions about the energetics and spirituality you just mentioned and how it’s in every cell. Thank you. Just a moment. Be back.

Hi, this is Dr. Doreen Downing, back with Patty de Vries, who’s just telling us today an amazing story of how the actual quieting of herself—her psyche, her body, her spirit, her voice—gave her some new perspective and this deep ability to be with and listen to what’s around her.

That’s something I’d like my listeners to consider today. Something that was not so good for you—let’s be with it. Let’s look into it and see what opened up for you by having to go through that experience.

Thank you, Patty. We’re back now. You were talking, and I want to pick up again on the spirit and the energetics, and every cell of our body having this aliveness, right? That’s what I felt when you were talking about it. Say more about that.

(20:19) Patty de Vries: Yes. I spent a lot of time reading books from 2020 to 2025. Not that I hadn’t always listened to books on tape, but there were a lot that I listened to over and over again. One of them was Living in the Light by Shakti Gawain. Another was Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Life by Wayne Dyer.

All these beautiful books became a kind of curiosity for me. In all of them, there was this wisdom, this alignment, that I felt so deeply.

When I decided to leave Stanford, I turned 55. The day I turned 55, I wrote my resignation letter. I decided that was the beginning of a new chapter.

I also started reading the 82 verses of the Tao Te Ching, and I meditated on each one. On the first day, I read the first verse and meditated on it. On the second day, I read the first and second verses and meditated. By day 42, I had read and meditated on all 42 verses.

From day 43 on, I read one verse a day and meditated. That, to me, became this living expression of the Tao, this unnameable life force that lives in all of us. It’s also the Holy Spirit that lives inside of us. It’s that energetic presence, that energy that exists in all of us.

Soon after that, one of our dear dogs, who was quite elderly, had some sort of medical incident. We picked her up, and I held her for about an hour as she passed.

This dog had been one of the stiffest creatures. I mean, she was like 15 years old. She couldn't bend her legs. She had a hard time going up and downstairs. She walked like she had two, you know, Popsicle sticks as legs.

Yet I held her and, and as she passed, as she lost her life, she became like a newborn baby. She was the most relaxed thing I’d ever held, other than my grandson I’ve held.

It was that realization that that tightness, that that is who we become when we don’t let ourselves be in flow, that we hold onto that energy. And I don't know what little Zara was holding onto, but I was stunned by the suppleness of this body when she lost her life.

(22:58) Doreen Downing: Oh, just listening to my body, it starts to relax in the muscles. This way, the flow, the word that you used was "flow," and it reminds me of water. Water can become ice, right? But how do we stay warm?

I think compassion. To me, you radiate compassion. It feels like this warmth and compassion is partly what allows for flow, at least as I’m listening to you.

So, we’re moving through your journey into finding more of yourself and finding your voice, is what it feels like. So, let’s just put it in that context—finding your voice now.

(24:01) Patty de Vries: Being in the forest is a magical place, and I found lots and lots of synchronicities. There were months where I just thought, "This is all I want to do for the rest of my life—be in the forest, build trails, watch the seasons, learn, and get to know."

It was sort of an escape from mankind. I believe it was a place where the world felt a little bit hard. I’d watch the news. I’d come up, and my husband had been watching the news, and he could get a little upset about it. And I’d think, "Okay, maybe I’ll go back to the forest."

Eventually, I had this really clear message that this is not what I’m being called to do. I’m being called into the world to help heal it. And I’ll get emotional saying this, but those of us who find that joy, who find that light within us, our obligation then is to share it.

(25:03) Doreen Downing: Yes. Thank you for being here today to share your voice and your insights, your wisdom, your vulnerability right now, too—being so real. 

(25:22) Patty de Vries: It’s a beautiful gift and it’s not an obligation. Let me take that back. If I said obligation, it’s a gift that I truly feel is for me to share and for me to give.

I’m finishing up my eBook, and it shares a lot of this, right? It shares a lot of my journey. It shares a lot about flow, and it feels like a gift to the world because I see people suffering.

I talk to people more and more—my friends, people I’ve talked to about neuro-literacy. They’ll say, "Oh, yeah, yeah, that’s easy. That’s that, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s good. I study that."

Then, when something gets really hard, they’ll call me, and they’ll say, "Okay, maybe I’m ready to listen. This is a really tough situation, and I can’t get myself out of the rumination."

What you said earlier, I believe, is my gift. I can literally find a positive in everything. That came from an early age. That same coach—it’s kind of a funny story—the same coach, I think I was pretty young, and he got really upset. He was really, really upset. He thought he was dying. His feet were blue, and he went on this huge spiral. He was about ready to call his wife, I think, to call the morgue. He was convinced he was dying, and everybody knew it. He was on a rampage.

So, you know, I said something like, "There are a lot of really happy people that are in wheelchairs. There are people that struggle with things, but they’re still really happy." And that became the "Patty Purple Wheelchair" speech, and he was not happy with me. It came to be that he had worn new blue socks that hadn’t been washed, and so it was just the dye from his feet. Nice.

So, it was another one of these things where it was this realization—he had spent, I don’t know how long, rotating, going down this spiral. It may have been only an hour or two, but he was still convinced he was going to die. I just thought, "Let’s look at the possibilities. If that’s the truth, if we know something we can’t change, then let’s find a way to find joy in it."

(27:41) Doreen Downing: Yes. Thank you. That’s something that’s really going to pop for people listening to what you just said—the Patty Purple Wheelchair speech.

The other thing that just happened when you said obligation—I know my body kind of went, "Oh," but you caught it yourself. It’s like you’re listening to yourself. You’re being with yourself all the time. And then you went, "Wait, wait, wait. Let me just go back to that and say, it’s my gift, and I know what my gift is." Ooh, that feels good.

Well, we’re getting closer to the end, and I want to make sure that you get to talk about whatever’s happening now for you in whatever you’re offering.

(28:25) Patty de Vries: Thank you. The offerings are transforming as we speak, because again, I’m on this journey, and I feel this gift to share.

I’m putting the finishing touches on my eBook, which I’m just trying to simplify the way to get it out. It’s called Living Well Within, and it’s really about going inside, finding that flow, finding our authentic nature, and celebrating that—celebrating it so that our voice just comes out.

I’ve also started something called "Ohming," and really what it is, it’s sort of like humming, but I’ll just put a song on, and I will "O" through it. I will just open my voice and see what pops out. It’s not about trying to sound good. It’s about that vibration that goes all the way down.

I started doing it with friends and feeling that connectedness when we get in sync. It’s like that tuning fork, right? When we have a room full of tuning forks, they sync up. Well, so do people when given the opportunity, and to feel that connectedness, that resonance with other people in the physical realm, is such a gift.

That’s helping me show others that joy, that connectedness, and that energy spark that we can have when we align ourselves with other beautiful people.

(29:45) Doreen Downing: Energy spark. That’s a visual that I hope the listeners can take with them. That’s true about the spark. It feels like today you set off sparks for people who happen to be with us.

Anything else before we put—I was going to say a period—before we put a comma? This is a conversation. I want people to feel like it goes on and on and on.

(30:27) Patty de Vries: The only thing I want to add is that we can change any given situation by a change in perspective. We can find joy in what we do. My husband laughs, and sometimes he gets in a mood and says, "Well, you’re just lucky. You get to just play all day."

Well, I come in covered in mud and burrs and everything, but he sees me so joy-filled that he thinks it’s just fun and games, when I know the hard work I’m doing. It’s not that it’s the fun work. It’s that I’ve made the work fun, and I believe that’s our opportunity.

(31:05) Doreen Downing: Oh, I feel so full. I feel sparked. Thank you. Thank you so much, Patty.