How to Thrive Through Uncertainty

instead of trying to you know push away a human experience or something that

0:05

happens naturally go towards it and get more curious about it you know so I'm

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noticing that I'm comparing myself here what's going on for me here what's actually maybe the value that's not

0:17

being met or a need that's not being met what is it about maybe this person I'm seeing on social media what is

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activating for me here that takes it out of comparison and back to a sense of self

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[Music]

0:40

I am so excited to welcome our next guest to the podcast comedy wood it is a

0:45

pleasure to have you and you and I had the opportunity to speak offline and we had such an amazing conversation and I

0:51

think both of us were like lighting up with the things that we were talking about so I know there is so much to share here and share with our audience

0:58

so welcome and thank you for being here thank you for having me I am excited to be here with you thank you um share with

1:06

us and I was sharing with you Offline that I did a little more research about you and your journey but um if you could

1:11

share with us kind of how you've come to your work and what your work is um I

1:17

love hearing everyone's path because I think sort of our work just sort of finds us and it's maybe not necessarily

1:23

what we started off doing or what we thought we would be doing or what we told we should do so I love hearing

1:29

those stories and Journeys well that fits me exactly um

Professional and personal journey

1:35

really when I started in the business world over 20 plus years ago I found myself as a project manager and then

1:42

working my way up so to speak the ladder uh to running a project management office and after that ended up running

1:50

growing and running a law practice in both of those roles though what I kept finding was that I was drawn to the

1:56

people the people part of the work and what I mean that is really working with individuals to figure out what it was

2:03

that they were needing in order to be successful or to just support them in terms of how they wanted to grow and

2:09

evolve um so that was happening for me professionally now personally during

2:15

that whole time period I was becoming a mom and I was becoming a mom times five as you and I chatted about uh and as you

2:23

know my kids started to grow older they were starting to mirror back to me certain aspects of how I was showing up

2:30

and one of those really key aspects was uh the people pleasing perfectionist part of me and I say and I'm not shy

2:38

about at all that my children are my greatest teacher uh they continue to teach me on a daily basis and so they

2:44

really were my Catalyst of recognizing where I was also potentially holding myself back and showing up in a in a

2:51

more dim down way than how I would have wanted my kids to show up for instance

2:57

so I kind of embarked on that that you know personal development journey of just understanding what that was about

3:04

for me what was that people pleasing perfectionist part of me about and through that Journey recognized that

3:11

that was really why I kept being called from a professional standpoint of supporting people and helping people

3:17

figure out what they wanted was because really what I was meant to do was to bring these two things together and to

3:23

work with people and in order to help them understand themselves better so that they can move towards where they

3:29

want want to go um only in hindsight did I recognize that my seven-year-old self knew this because my seven-year-old self

Reconnecting with childhood aspirations

3:36

originally had wanted to just talk to people that was what I what I had said that I wanted to do at seven was I just

3:41

want to talk to people and help them didn't really know what that meant and kind of like dropped it along the way because of being that high achiever and

3:48

just sort of what what's expected of me and you know what's the the normal way to go about things so anyway here I am

3:55

now living into what my seven-year-old self really wanted to do which is literally sit and talk to people and

4:01

really support them and help them understand themselves on that deeper level so that they can choose for

4:08

themselves what it is that they want and how they want to get there yeah wow what a journey and so fascinating and

4:15

interesting to hear that your seven-year-old self knew that and it's interesting to hear that age because I

4:21

think at that age you're still so innocent and you're not influenced by internal message so much and you're

4:26

still curious and you're still exploring and then it's it's like all this outside noise that comes in that starts to

Influence of external messages

4:33

change our own narrative and sort of shift yeah or inform like what we do or

4:39

what we work towards absolutely you know and and that's what we say is like our younger self knew who we were it's all

4:48

of those external influences that tend to morph thatat or cover it up almost I

4:54

know and I'm like making that face because I'm watching my three-year-old's almost he's not three yet he's almost

5:00

three um I'm just watching him and I'm like I don't want anything to take away

5:07

from his curiosity his innocence his excitement and I I think those things as

5:13

I look at him and I think about there will be all these influences that shift things and pull you away from like your

5:20

authentic self and I I I will do my best protect that or help him protect that

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but it it happens and that's you know a lot of what we talk about here is sort

5:32

of that external noise or those achievements or those Milestones that we should reach and um you mentioned High

5:39

Achievers and I know you work with high Achievers and perfectionism and it's a lot of the clients I've worked with a

5:45

lot of women that I see are just super ambitious like high Achievers High

5:50

performers and that they file follow that blueprint and are very successful

5:56

of that but then find themselves you know unpartnered or or you know older

6:01

and freezing their eggs and there's a lot of anxiety and angst about that I'm I'm I know you and I spoke about this

6:07

but I'm curious how that shows up in your work well I think you know to your point

Challenges of high achievers

6:13

I do think that there's this almost a blueprint especially for high Achievers

6:19

that's given out that you know you have to keep pushing yourself and pushing yourself and if you were to take a step

6:24

back um from that you're going to fall off right it's almost you know chatted

6:29

about this where it's almost like a covert shame that happens where it's like if I don't if I don't continue to

6:35

push myself then therefore I'm not going to be able to achieve the things and therefore if I don't achieve the things

6:40

somehow I'm a failure or I'm bad or there's something wrong with me yes and and I think that that's part of what

6:47

we're dealing with with these high achieving women is that they they've been living by a blueprint that they

6:52

didn't actually have any agency to write and that's really what

Creating agency and rewriting blueprints

6:57

it comes back down to is giving ourselves permission to take back that agency to create the blueprint that's

7:03

right for us and and that might might also mean recognizing that timelines are

7:09

defined by just you they're not defined by some external Source yeah how do you

7:15

help your the your clients the people you work with make those shifts because

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I see like I see the value of that in so much and I just think it can be really

7:26

difficult to quiet out the external noise you know I've talked about comparison I want to talk about that

7:31

more here how to deal with that but yeah how do you help people make that shift

7:37

to take that back to yeah to to rewrite the blueprints to to let go of the

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timelines yeah the very first thing that I think that it requires is more self-awareness because what what happens

7:50

is is we're going through life we've taken on these narratives or these beliefs and we're operating from that

7:56

place and so the very first thing is to start bringing to awareness what are some of those narratives or false

8:01

beliefs that we're operating from because we can't do anything unless we're conscious of what those narratives

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are that's number one number two is coming back home to self and what that really means is taking the time to go

8:15

back into understanding what's meaningful for you where do your values lie not just the ones that you're

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brought up with or the ones that you've you've kind of assimilated from either culture that you've grown up in or even

8:27

Society for that matter but where are your actual true core values what are they and where do they why because those

8:34

are the two pieces that if you're more aware of what those beliefs are that you've been operating from then you re

8:39

acclimate with your own core values now you can actually take values based actions to rewrite what that narrative

Self-awareness and values-based actions

8:46

is to rewrite what that blueprint is because without those those values of what's actually meaningful to me you're

8:52

still operating from a place that's not fully connected with self and that's really the key is how do I reconnect

8:58

with myself first first before I can start rewriting some of these

9:03

narratives yeah it's interest I I I mean I in my work I we always I always start with awareness too and you know whether

9:10

we're talking about timelines or like inner critic or understanding like where did that narrative come from whose voice

9:16

is that is that even authentic to yourself and I think without that that pause to create that awareness you might

9:22

think no I really want these things and I really want these things by this time but maybe when you peel back the layers you realize it's not necessar my voice

9:30

or it's not necessarily my timeline yeah yeah or I never actually had any say in that timeline it was kind of quote

9:36

unquote given to me and that's when it's you know I mean I've even just had a conversation with my daughter about this she's 22 G to be

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23 and all of her friends around her seemed to be partnering and then talking about marriage and she herself started

9:49

to feel that pressure and we had a very specific conversation around how are you defining those timelines where are they

9:55

coming from now in her per from her perspective it was coming from more of a social mindset and so she had to kind of

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reenter of okay what's actually meaningful to me right now where am I in my in my life what are the things that I

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want to focus on you know coming back home to her own sense of self instead of

10:14

creating that timeline based on what was happening around her yeah as you're talking I'm just thinking how incredible

10:20

for your daughter to have a mother that has done this work and has the awareness because you know realistically a lot of

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pressure comes from family and family expectation or cultural expectation so I just think it's as you were talking like

10:33

oh my gosh it's so amazing that she can go to her mother and her mother encourage her to like come back to self

10:39

yeah it's funny that you say that because yes there are moments uh where I think that they really do enjoy it but there are definitely moments where I

10:45

have to check in and say do you want more of a coachi feel here or do you want mom because sometimes we just need Mom to be like you know what that's

10:52

terrible right which version do you want yeah yeah yeah yeah that's yeah and

11:00

one thing that I I want to talk I want to like stay focused on comparison because that comes up a lot I think

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social media obviously creates a great platform for comparison where you can see people and you listen as the no gosh

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now 43 like I get on there and I'm still in this fertility journey and I see women post pregnancy pictures and it's

11:18

really hard not to have an emotional reaction to that but if I'm recalling this correctly on our initial

11:25

call you you had said like lean into the comparison maybe not like don't

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necessarily A avoid it and can you I'd love for you to speak to that more here

Dealing with comparison and shame

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yeah so one of the things that I really have come to just Embrace is first of all we have we have the natural law of

11:43

relativity right so we as human beings are going to compare things I mean we

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compare whether we want to hit the snooze button or whether we want to get up right so comparison is part of our

11:54

everyday life it just there are some that are more helpful than not um but

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really instead of trying to you know push away a human experience or

12:04

something that happens naturally go towards it and get more curious about it

12:10

you know so I'm noticing that I'm comparing myself here what's going on for me here what's actually maybe the

12:15

value that's not being met or a need that's not being met what is it about maybe this person I'm seeing on social

12:21

media what is activating for me here that takes it out of comparison and back to a sense of self let me learn more

12:28

about myself and what going on here and then you can reenter it back on in what do I want for myself and what's the

12:34

action I want to take for myself versus sitting in spinning in the they have this and I'm behind now we're stuck in

12:40

the that victimhood mindset right but if we try to just go away from it we're

12:45

actually denying a part of ourselves there's a part of ourselves that got activated and went into comparison that

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comparison part had an intention if we understand what that intention is now we

12:57

have the ability to take an act for ourselves rather than just trying to push it away because if we just push it

13:03

away it's going to come back at another point because it's left unresolved that part has been left unresolved and truly

13:09

just unwitnessed and so we need to witness that part of ourselves and love that part of ourselves and give her what

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she needs yeah and I love like taking away the Judgment of it right it's

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coming up either way and so and I I work with my clients a lot in sort of that

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space of the adding the secondary emotion like it's coming up either way so there's then this choice of like what do I do

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with this I can I can like shame spiral or being in that victim mode of I don't

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have this I'm never going to have this or I love what you're sharing and suggesting is like lean into it and try

13:44

to understand what it's saying to you yes yeah yeah because if we don't again

13:50

we are denying parts of oursel and that's actually a sense of covert shame if you think about it because you're

13:55

denying parts of yourself because they're wrong or they're bad and so it's a way to recognize like it's

14:01

just another way that we shame ourselves when we deny those those experiences or those parts yeah how do you yeah shame

14:07

is a big one and so how do you work with your clients with shame oh shame is such a big one and

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really what we work on is first of all witnessing it because shame will continue to grow when it's not witnessed

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when it's kind of left to fester and Foster in the in the darkness right I equate it to mold it grows in the in the

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darkness and in the wet so we need to kind of shine light on it and dry it out um I know it's kind of a grotesque

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metaphor to use but it's the best one that I have and so that's what we do you know in our in our sessions it's like

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okay speak it out not because we're speaking out and we're going to live into it but it's like we need to witness what's being said here because the more

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we just let you sort of keep it in the background the more you continue to shame yourself and so once it's

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witnessed we can then break it down and say well what's actually true and also going back to what we said earlier like

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whose voice is that where did that come from w that's not even my story I've been taking on this there's something

15:02

wrong with me and that's that's not even true it belongs to you know the person

15:08

from like Elementary School who decided to tell me that you know it's it's just it's it's coming back to that sense of

15:13

self and and I said it before autonomy agency owning the pieces of yourself

15:19

yeah I think I think obviously the piece agency is so so important I think what

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gets hard is feeling like you don't have it especially in the spes of relationship or fertility or or mother

15:32

what because we those are things that we feel like we can't control and as

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Achievers or perfectionists like we like control absolutely and yeah how would you work

15:45

with that like how does AG How can having agency apply to these parts that

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are that feel so out of our control control I really honor that question

Taking ownership and agency

15:57

because you're absolutely right as high that's what we really seek a lot of times is control because control gives us a sense of safety so when we're in

16:04

these situations where there are certain things that we don't control like for instance we don't have full control over

16:10

our body but we still have agency we can capture agency over how we choose to

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respond how we choose to speak to ourselves how we choose to honor ourselves and that self-care aspect of

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it because we don't have control over what's going on with our body for

16:27

instance in certain aspects but we do have ownership and agency over how we

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then take care of ourselves and what it is that we're saying to ourselves yeah agency doesn't necessarily mean control

16:39

right control is wanting to own pieces and instead it's what can I and how do I

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choose to respond not react but respond because that means that we're slowing down taking into account what's really

16:51

happening for us what it is that we're experiencing what is that we're feeling and then from that place taking an

16:56

action you know and I just all say values based action what's meaningful for me here and that's how we can how we

17:03

can break down you know that barrier of like but I want to have control agency it's noticing that there is that slight

17:08

distinction yeah I love the distinction you made between respond and react too yeah that was very powerful hearing

17:16

that because it's so true like the respond is more thoughtful and and you

17:22

you take that pause and the react is maybe not as thoughtful yeah reaction

17:27

generally tends to be very um emotionally charged like it's it's based

17:32

from an emotional charg Place versus when we take time to respond we've

17:39

connected back to self we've connected back to the present moment and then we're we make an active Choice from that

17:44

place yeah you yeah I totally agree with that you have mentioned a couple times

17:50

and there's a lot of the ways that I work too like value based and when I

17:55

introduce this idea to my clients they look at me like I'm kind of crazy because they're like what and then and

18:01

then it's so funny because I asked them to kind of step away and think about what their values are and some of them

18:07

come back and they're like I didn't know I had to like Google what some of them were I didn't really know so I'm curious

Discovering personal values

18:13

your experience with that work with your clients like is it similar that they're not which is fascinating to really think

18:20

about that you know I work with all adults so to to ask that question and them not know what they are says a lot

18:26

about yeah what is driving us how clear we are or

18:32

connected to sense itself yes oh my gosh it's so funny because a lot of people

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when I first say values based action they look at me and like what what do you what do is that even mean um so

18:44

similar experience and yes a time after time they'll say to me Kony I have not ever

18:51

actually taken the time to figure out what my values are because the truth is we grow up we kind of take on what

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whatever we were told and whatever form we were brought up with or we've assimilated again from society or

19:05

culture and we kind of just autopilot our way through and so my experience

19:11

with this is slowing people down and having them do that work of really figuring out what actually is Meaningful

19:17

for them is probably the first time that they've done that in their adult life where they recognized like oh my gosh

19:24

like this is actually what my values are and this whole time I was operating Maybe with my parents values as the

19:30

go-to and I'm realizing wow there's this difference between where they were and me and it's not about Judgment of our

19:35

parents it's just saying oh my gosh I need to give myself going back to permission to live the life that is

19:42

Meaningful for me not the one that was somewhat kind of projected onto me from

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wherever the source may have been um and I do find that people struggle with it

19:53

those values that values sort of exercise that we do in the beginning they

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definitely struggle with um coming up with those values and then of course I get though I can't come up with five

20:05

what do you mean five all of these things are important because right because again it's like well yeah all of

20:10

those are important and nobody's saying that they're not but if you really go down into like what truly drives you at

20:17

the core of your core you know what are those meaningful things that's where the work really starts because that's when

20:23

you're really reconnecting with that self and that self that was there from the moment you were born it's just that

20:30

that's been layered over all these years oh layered and layered yeah it's my feeling in my work with my clients that

20:37

you know when you're really clear on those values and and you have like Seasons where things are off or you're

20:43

not feeling great or you're more anxious orwh just press it's like you're you're further away from your values so the

20:49

more closely connected you can live operate decide move through the world connected to your values the better

20:55

you're going to feel but if you're if you're thinking about it as we're talking about it if you're operating on

21:00

someone else's values it doesn't matter how close connected you are to them you're not going to feel great and I think a lot of women end up in this

21:08

place where we're told marry by this time babies by this time those are like the values or the

21:15

the blueprint and and if it's not true to are you're in distress yes yes

Shame and Depression

21:20

because the whole time you're telling yourself you're doing something wrong or there's something wrong with you so now you're just continuing to shame yourself

21:27

and so that's going to lead you down a path of sadness and depression and isolation because this whole time you're

21:33

thinking that I'm I'm not living up to what I should be doing yeah I always say

21:39

that those values are like that ground zero they can in the even in the most challenging times we can go back and say

21:46

okay what's even one small thing that I can do that would be meaningful for me right now and when I say meaningful that

21:53

would be the values based action what is even one small thing that I can move myself forward with because challenges

21:59

are going to happen I mean life's going to throw whatever curve balls that it has in store for us and it's not about

22:05

trying to avoid those I mean pain is part of The Human Experience our choice though is do we suffer right do we sit

22:12

in it and suffer or do we recognize that we still can move through it and if we go back to our values it can be that

22:19

almost like that floaty so to speak if this is how I can navigate those Waters yeah yeah and and yeah again the value

22:26

of identifying your values is so huge um have you seen in your work or

22:34

I'd be curious like to share an example of someone you'd work with you've done this values work and there's this huge

22:40

like Epiphany that this is totally not my path this is not someone else you

22:46

know this is someone else's blueprint well I mean it happened in the course of U motherhood with somebody who

Redefining Motherhood

22:52

you know the blueprint was you needed to be a mother by a certain time in life and the values were very clear that she

22:59

still wanted to be a mother and so it was redefining what motherhood could mean does it have to mean the

23:05

traditional role of I need to have a newborn for instance and in her case it was I can be open to any aspect of

23:13

motherhood and I don't have to live by the value of I need to be a certain age

23:18

or if I P now that I'm past that age I can no longer do this thing I love that yeah and I think what

Expanding Perspectives

23:25

happens too it's like there are more Visions for motherhood or relationship

23:32

or career that we're I think we're just starting to talk about right and we had

23:37

one picture of the way it was supposed to be and if it didn't look that way and it's such a narrow perspective and it

23:44

does create this idea that if I miss that window or if it doesn't look this way I can't have it at all so I think

23:49

that's so beautiful that you had a client that was was able to open the vision and and be a mother in her own

23:56

way yeah yeah and and that's what happens is we we box ourselves in but

24:02

again that going through the values it was to use your word that Epiphany it was like the opening of oh I don't have

24:09

to stay in that box because this is what I actually value it wasn't it wasn't time driven there was no value in I have

24:16

to be X Ag and so all of a sudden it opened up all this possibility oh I imagine just like the or like the sense

24:24

of relief for your client or or Joy coming to that Joy yeah yeah yeah I had a client very similarly where

24:32

she let go of her vision of relationship and we had worked together for years and she did such amazing work and she kind

24:40

of came to this point where she was open to all these other visions of relationship and not too long after her

24:46

partner walked into her life he he had children that's not a vision she previously seen and she's engaged and

24:53

about to be married so I I think there's yeah yeah how do we open up our

24:59

perspective and our vision to other options yeah yeah oh my gosh that's awesome gives me geese

25:05

bumps know the work the work is so so amazing we've also used the word

Permission and Self-trust

25:11

permission and I'd love to hear how you work with that with your clients because I think that is hard to you know I think

25:20

a lot has to happen before we give oursel permission like awareness and values work but then being able to take

25:26

those leaps to carve a different path because even though we've done the

25:31

work there's other people around us that have not and might have judgments about what it looks like to you know do

25:39

motherhood in a different way be in a relationship and not get married do a different career than you know is

25:46

traditionally acceptable so I would I love to hear like how you work with your clients or even yourself through your

25:51

own Journey that permission because you are someone that took a leap and changed

25:57

careers uh the question that I I'll use me as an example on this one the question that I asked myself was you

26:03

know Colony whose permission are you waiting for just being able to step into that and almost put it out there is

26:11

almost in like third person whose permission are you waiting for allowed

26:16

to for me at least to see that I was putting myself again in that box of

26:21

waiting for somebody to say it's okay and at the end of the day I realized I

26:27

didn't need anybody to say that the only person that I needed to say it was okay was me because no matter what happens I

26:34

will continue to show up for myself it's rebuilding that self trust and that's what permission really comes down to is

26:41

trusting ourselves that no matter what the next thing is that shows up in our

26:46

path we can meet it and work through it so really permission is about self trust

26:52

and knowing that you can show up for yourself and we know that because you're here today which means there's already

26:58

evidence that you've been showing up for yourself even in those moments where it didn't feel like it you have been

27:04

otherwise you wouldn't be here right I think sometimes it's so hard to see the

27:09

evidence I think we get stuck like we were talking about shame earlier or comparison and I think being in those

27:15

places it's really hard to see the evidence of what is possible or the evidence that we can trust ourselves or

27:21

the evidence that we are have already navigated challenging times and how yeah how do you create

27:30

that Clarity for your clients to say hey you've look at this like there is

27:36

evidence the best thing for that I do with my clients is actually have them name some of their own progress and what

Reflecting on Personal Progress

27:43

things that they have gone through and how they have shown up for themselves I almost call it um I have them right

27:48

start success journals so to speak which is just where have I shown up for myself

27:54

and how did I show up for myself and start writing those things down because in these moments where we get stuck in

27:59

the rabbit hole of I can't see it not sure I'm really self-doubting it's you can even pick up this your own written

28:07

Journal that says these are the moments that I face this is how I showed up for myself and this is who I was being and

28:13

you can review all of that and there's your evidence right there because you're absolutely right when we're in the

28:18

moment it's very easy to get caught up and to stay in that moment so it's how do we pull ourselves out so as we're

28:23

going through things and we're noticing that we're we're having those personal successes or we we see ourselves showing

28:29

up in these these more empowered ways writing those things down it's actually really important because then we have

28:36

the evidence right at our fingertips when we need it most yeah yeah and I think sometimes also like having an

28:43

external support coach therapist whoever helps us you know reflect in those ways

28:49

I'm CU to go back to the permission piece for you personally before you asked yourself that question and

28:55

realized I'm the only one that needs to say this is okay what were your narratives around maybe

29:01

not giving yourself the permission for me personally it was all about what Will

29:06

how will this affect the other people in my life it was always about are their needs going to be met and it's not to

29:13

say their needs don't matter but for me it was recognizing that they also need

29:19

agency and autonomy so they need to be responsible for their needs and I can be responsible for my needs right it's not

29:26

my job to make my decisions based off of making sure everyone else was happy that's that whole letting go of the

29:32

people pleaser it's recognizing they they get to be responsible for themselves and I get to be responsible

29:37

for myself doesn't mean we don't care about or I don't care about them any less it just means I'm actually giving

29:43

them back permiss their permission to take care of themselves and to speak what they need and I'm doing the same

29:48

thing for myself yeah it's you know as we're like this whole conversation I'm just like the word that's coming to my mind is

29:54

like like untangling all these I things that went together and like untangling

30:01

what is yours and what is your life to live versus the life we're told we should live and that's just the word

30:06

that's like popping in my mind is like untangling all this stuff yeah whenever

Untangling Personal Desires

30:12

I'm doing the work or I'm talking about it the image that routinely will pop into my mind is exactly that it's like a

30:18

I can see like a necklace that's been tangled up into you know overlapping and then it's about pulling the pieces apart

30:25

to just create that you know the space to just have that that single layer of

30:30

of necklace chain um because that's what happens is we get all am meshed and knotted up and then it's okay where

30:35

where where do I where am I in this whole thing can I just engage with myself again right

30:42

yeah yeah it's yeah I can't help but that just like keeps reoccurring my in my mind and being so amesh thinking that

30:51

some of it is yours some of the desires are actually authentically yours or some

30:56

of the responsibility is ERS and really it's a lot of work to to untangle all of

31:03

that which is why I think people shy away from it right because it it is work it's not it's not necessarily it's not

31:10

passive that's what I always say to people who reach out is this this work that we're going to do is not passive it's a very generative a very generative

31:18

practice that we're engaging in yeah and just emotionally what it means to kind of dismantle some of this stuff and sort

31:24

of come to the realization that it wasn't authentically yours or that it was

31:31

projected on you is is hard to hold to so it is yeah it's not easy by by any

31:38

means have you had any of your high Achievers have some resistance to some

31:43

of the work and maybe taking longer to untangle as we're saying absolutely I

31:49

would be lying if I said no no yes because this is it's it's a bought in

31:54

idea and they probably most high achiever will say well if they're scared

32:00

to let go of it because it's it's gotten them to where they are it's just giving them a little more time to get to this

32:07

place of recognizing like yes it absolutely got you to where you are but now it's holding you back so something

32:13

that once served you is no longer in service of you and it's okay to let it

32:18

go because like I said it's it's not doing what it once did now it's starting to have an alternate effect it's sort of

32:25

how um I even describe my empathy I I believe that my empathy is a huge

32:30

strength of mine when I lean too far into it it becomes people pleasing and becomes detrimental this is the same

32:37

concept that we use when helping people get to that place of you know because it's fear it's fear that told that

32:43

because this is the thing that they've known and it has gotten them to where they are it's just can they can they

32:50

recognize that yep got me here and it now is actually starting to pull me back

32:57

rather than contining to allow me to move forward yeah yeah I I I hold that same

33:02

idea of like the awareness around what once served us could be the thing that is no longer helping us and and letting

33:09

go of that and again bringing that awareness to it first and foremost is what's so

33:16

important yeah go ahead go ahead I was just gonna say a lot of times what we

33:21

find is that those things were also survival mechanisms right I'm just thinking about some of my clients who

33:26

showed up a certain way when they were younger because that was that was how they survived and and were able to get

33:32

you know I was think I'm thinking about a client who dimmed a lot when she was younger and that's how she survived in

33:38

her household of how she how she was brought up it now no longer serves her because now like in her professional

Recognizing Survival Mechanisms

33:44

career the more she dims herself the less she's able to continue to achieve the things that she really wants for

33:50

herself and so it is about recognizing like that that dimming of your light was

33:56

in service of you to a certain point we kind of need to honor that and then recognize that now that I'm at this

34:02

current age and this stage of Life how is it that I want to show up right and I'm not in that environment

34:08

anymore that was the survival the necessary survival mechanism

34:14

yeah yeah I I see that a lot in my work too and it's hard because it is that like development of safety and the

34:21

development of of trust and you know being and from that place being able to make those shifts in

34:30

changes do you work with a lot of women that are feeling angst around timelines

34:37

and motherhood and maybe not partnered and how has this work help helped them I

34:43

mean this is a lot of what we speak to here and it's it's it's real I felt it I lived it The Angst of being you know for

34:49

me 34 and unpartnered or I just met my partner at 34 and and not a mother yet

34:56

and freezing at 37 so I'm just curious to hear your experience with sort of that

35:01

demographic yeah I I think that there's so many women who are on these timelines

35:07

or keeping to these narratives that aren't theirs and and it definitely in my work that's what I'm noticing is that

35:13

they they have anx they have anxiety they have shame around I was supposed to

35:18

find my partner and I haven't and or they're jumping into relationships Without Really recognizing whether that

35:24

is a healthy relationship for them because of that narrative right so that's part of my work too is really

35:30

helping people understand where they are in certain relationships because I have seen many women enter these toxic

35:37

relationships because they feel rushed so it's just almost like this belief of

35:43

well I have to take what I can get because of this this timeline that I'm working with or because I have to you

35:50

know um achieve relationship status so to speak and so that has come up time

35:55

and time again and so a lot of the coaching that I do is around yes understanding of self understanding of

36:01

what that that story is and then coming back to you know what is it that you actually want is it a timeline you're

36:07

trying to meet or is it this deeper value that you have I mean we're right back to values because at the end of the

36:12

day time is pretty arbitrary we make it up it's not it's not really I mean I

36:18

talk about this in the context of grief really um that's when when we can really see it where you know grief doesn't know

36:25

time we can lose somebody today and 10 years from now we can still be sad and

36:31

and activated by a memory of them because it doesn't know time so that is a great way to look at how time is kind

36:37

of made up there's really not a rule we're the ones who get to make the rules so if we can make the rules we can

36:44

change the rules yeah I I I agree with that but as I'm listening I'm thinking

36:49

about in the context of like the fertility space and the biological time

36:55

which you know I think those narratives are being wonderfully dismantled and they like you don't like your fertility doesn't die at

37:02

35 but I think there is some reality to you know age and

37:08

fertility there is a yeah yeah I agree with you that there's there is some that

37:14

again that's out that sort of looks at control where we don't control certain things in terms of fertility in terms of

37:20

our inner body it it goes back to that client that I was mentioning um it's

37:26

what's the value you is it fertility or is it motherhood right what is it that we're wanting here what is the thing

37:32

that's meaningful to us because then it opens up the possibility of with my client for instance how can I define

37:39

motherhood for myself rather than a predetermined definition of motherhood what could it look like how could it how

37:45

could it look different so yes to your point that time there are certain things that we don't we don't control in terms

37:52

of time because it I mean life itself is time limited we're only here in this physical being we an unspecified amount

37:58

of time but it's within those constraints how do we redefine what that looks like if that makes sense yeah yeah

38:05

no that does and I think it was what we were saying earlier it's like opening ourselves up to other Visions or

38:10

pictures or possibilities I mean I think a lot of times life never turns out as we imagine or plan and and a lot of

38:16

times it's better than we imagine or plan or a lot of times it makes sense when all things unfold at the time that

38:21

they that they do um one other question I want to ask you because this comes up

38:27

a lot in my work I struggle with this myself especially as again like perfectionists high Achievers ambitious

38:33

women is how do you help women navigate

38:40

uncertainty and unknowns and great areas because I think a lot of the things that we're talking about and do talk about in

38:46

terms of like relationship motherhood or not Vision like it's there's a lot of

38:53

uncertainty uh in those cases oh gosh I relate to this one too because I'm such I mean as an high

Navigating Uncertainty

39:00

achiever and I'm definitely type A so there's that part of me too certainty means a lot um the way that I personally

39:08

have worked through it as well as that I work with my clients on is how do we come what what can we be certain about

39:15

it comes back to what we know about ourselves so I can be certain about myself I can trust myself that I will

39:23

continue to show up even if I don't know how this particular thing is going to unfold I can use this in context of

39:30

motherhood because this is probably the one area that I do really question myself because there's no manual you're

39:36

pretty much winging it um uncertainty is such a part of it we have no idea and so

39:43

even like even just the college process with my middle child she's about to graduate high school in just a little

39:48

bit here and that whole there was so much uncertainty and I was recognizing that I was getting anxious about it

39:54

because it was like I don't know I don't know the the you know area of the country I should advise her to go to I

39:59

don't know how this is going to unfold the uncertainty of like is she going to be disappointed all of those things that were outside of my control okay comedy

40:06

what can you be certain about here well you can be certain about the fact that you're going to show up and be there for

40:11

her no matter what the results are you can be certain about the fact that you will love her no matter what you can be

40:17

certain about the fact that you will continue to offer support and guidance as best as you can so you kind of go

40:22

through what you can be certain about and usually more often than not it's what am I certain about myself because

40:29

that's that's the constant in all of life's uncertainties you're the constant so if you can come back to that sense of

40:36

self trust you can navigate the uncertainty I'm not saying it makes it easy there's still definitely

40:41

anxiousness about it and instead of again like uh comparison we don't run away from the anxiousness we recognize

40:47

it we go towards it okay I'm noticing I'm anxious here what am I anxious about what is it that I'm needing oh wow I'm

40:52

needing certainty well I don't know the certain way that this is going to unfold but the these are the things I can be

40:58

certain about about myself yeah I love yeah no to totally and and as

41:05

you're thinking I I'm wondering and I'm curious if you have have any like tools or suggestions on again we're talking

41:11

about like a high achieving women so I'm I'm I'm thinking about again time right we're we're hustle culture we're

41:19

busy how do you implement or suggest implementing maybe even small strategies

41:25

right I I can imagine women listening like awareness sounds great value sounds great coming back to sense sounds great

41:30

but I don't have time to do that like I have 800 million things to do like how am I going to do that so any ways to

41:36

sort of integrate this into the day that it's like you don't you know you have time to do this yeah my biggest one to

Integrating Self-reflection

41:44

say is um there's nothing like shower time first of all shower thoughts are the best so let's use shower thoughts

41:50

for some selfawareness and self-reflection I actually use shower time for a gratitude practice uh but

41:56

also it's not about spending hours doing this it's give yourself five minute reminders you know check in with

42:02

yourself halfway through the day just check in and and ask yourself how am I feeling like what am I feeling right now

42:07

what is it that I need that's a great way to start this journey of just self-awareness and understanding what's

42:12

going on for yourself and then you start building from there it's not about you know stopping and taking hours upon

42:19

hours it's just carving out moments and here's the key to remember is those five minutes that you feel like you don't

42:25

have time to invest in yourself it's actually going to take away from long term uh what you're able

42:33

to accomplish that five minutes you will absolutely get your return on investment for I think one thing too that can come

Facing Avoidance

42:40

up is and we're as we're talking about all this this work that we're we're acknowledging that it is not easy so I

42:46

think it's also what is easy is to slip into avoidance right so am I going to take five minutes to kind of face some

42:52

or am I going to take five minutes and scroll on Instagram right so it's like a lot of times and now we have this

42:59

mechanism on our phones to tell us how many times we pick up our phone and how much we're on screen time I would always

43:05

like look to that like look what your screen time is saying and then ask yourself do you do you really not have time but I think that avoidance comes in

43:13

of like this is harder to do than just decide sort of mindlessly

Embracing the Process

43:19

scroll absolutely I mean there's no there's no um there's no easy way to do

43:24

this anytime that we go into self and dive deeper I mean I would love to say

43:29

it's super easy I think there are people out there who are like oh it's super quick you know a month and you'll be back to whatever it's like give yourself

43:36

some Grace I mean years and years of certain patterns and ways of thinking it's going to take time to unfold so

43:42

it's not about rush into it and it's a high achiever it's like okay I want to do this so I want to do it quickly it's give yourself the grace to do this in

43:48

this in a stepbystep pattern versus trying to get it done yesterday I think that's the hard thing

43:55

you you nail such a good point it's like like when we want it we want it now and I think patience is where I struggle

44:03

tremendously me too I like patience and for things for

44:08

myself like with my son I'm like a very patient person like but when I set my

44:14

desire on something like I want it and I want it to happen now and of course I don't have control over those certain

44:21

things were but like the big things that really matter to me I don't have control over those timelines yeah yeah

Fear of Failure

44:28

and that's Again part of um you know honoring oneself and saying okay there's

44:34

a part of me that wants this now and we get curious with it what's going on here a lot of times there's fear involved I

44:40

know for me I don't want to speak for anybody else but I know for me it's fear that I won't I won't get it I'll fail I

44:45

won't so it's like the quicker I can get to something then I don't have to I don't have to have that that fear of

44:50

failure it's like ripping the Band-Aid so to speak um but then if you if you understand that it's like okay so what

44:56

am I really afraid of here how am I scaring myself then we can again bringing that to the awareness we can

45:02

shift we can shift what that narrative is about it's like oh this is just a

45:08

this is like maybe for me it's my catastrophic thinking like if I don't do this quickly it'll never happen okay

45:13

what's actually true is that it it will happen it's just going to take time I mean like just like baking a cake it

45:19

doesn't happen in 10 minutes you've got to wait for it to go the 25 to 35 minutes depending on the type of cake you're baking right it's just it's

45:26

reminding that these things it's it's okay that that and so we can shift that catastrophic thinking um into what's you

45:33

know what's actually true yeah I think to the staying attached to an outcome

45:39

right and again we're talking about unknowns and uncertainties but I will ask you this as someone that has given

45:44

yourself permission to take a risk have moved out of people pleasing Tendencies are you

45:50

happier oh my gosh yes yes and I really did you just said something very important and I don't want people to

Outcome vs. Process

45:56

miss it is outcome focused versus process focused I absolutely as a high

46:02

achiever was so outcome focused it was all about the end result and that was part of the the growth was starting to

46:08

enjoy the process of where I was going because it opened up the idea that the outcome could look different than how I

46:14

originally thought of it but if I was present for the process it felt aligned

46:20

no matter how the thing actually love came to fruition yeah and and to answer

46:26

your question yes I mean much more joy because you're you're more um or for me

46:33

at least I am more present for my life instead of feeling like I'm just kind of coasting through or the old thing that I

46:39

used to do is okay I just need to get through the today I just need to get through today rushing through constantly

46:45

get to the day get to and and when I even if the even if that thought now enters my mind I'm like oh I need to

46:52

pause here because I'm wishing away my life and that's not where I want to be and I I just do that quick like okay

46:59

what do I need to how can I reground reenter come back to self um because that's part of it too is recognizing we

47:06

going to do this work we're gonna have moments where old patterns will pop up and that's not to say done anything

47:12

wrong right it's just another it's just part of the Being Human and and this idea too like not

47:19

rushing through our lives because I know for me and this is one of the biggest you know intentions of the podcast is

47:26

because I live this I want to sort of Safeguard anyone else and I had a really and I think the 30s are a wonderful

47:32

decade I think there's so much growth and so much excitement and like sense developing a stronger sense of self if

47:39

we allow that right if we if if we allow it to be that or it could be pressure

47:45

driven you know timeline driven and there's so much Push Pull and angst I

47:50

had of like oh this is so great I have this Independence I'm like moving along in my career but I don't have these

47:57

things and so there's so much more opportunity to enjoy

48:02

life yes when you can do all this work that we're talking about now yeah because you're engaged in it right you

48:09

you're you are a generative part of it versus being a passive reactive part of

48:15

it oh I love that I love that any I mean You' have shared so much today but any

48:21

sort of parting wisdom or advice for women that are finding themselves not

48:27

present in their lives I really encourage people the women to just slow down give yourself

Reconnecting with Self

48:35

give yourself permission to slow down and just reconnect with yourself because that's really truly where where it

48:41

begins is that reconnection with self and as you reconnect with self you start defining things for yourself rather than

48:47

utilizing someone else's definitions of what you should be or how you should be

48:52

but instead it becomes yours oh I love that so much well thank you so much for being here and please tell everybody

48:58

where they can find you where they potentially could work with you uh I'm

49:03

on the web at commonwood dcom and then Facebook and Instagram with the handle it's authentic me and of course LinkedIn

49:11

with my name comedy wood thank you comedy so much for being here I I've Loved this conversation I loved our

49:16

previous conversation it's just so nice to to speak with you thank you so much

49:22

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