Latest / Rising Above The Mud / S1:E4 | Cultivating Your Ecosystem: Building a Support System for Long-Term Wellness

Transcript

S1:E4 | Cultivating Your Ecosystem: Building a Support System for Long-Term Wellness · Rising Above The Mud

0:14
Hello, my friends, and welcome back to Rising Above the Mud.
0:19
I'm Melissa Heisner, your host, and I'm so deeply glad you chose
0:23
to hit play and share the space with me today.
0:28
If you haven't already downloaded today's companion
0:31
worksheet, please consider pressing pause and doing that
0:34
now. It's available in the episode
0:37
summary or at www.lotus-anddashlight-coaching.com.
0:48
On the website, navigate over to the Rising Above the Mud podcast
0:53
page and you'll see the link listed under Season 1, Episode
0:57
4. Wherever you are right now,
1:01
whether you're driving to work, folding laundry, taking a quiet
1:05
walk, or sitting with a warm cup of tea or coffee, let's take a
1:10
collective breath together. Inhale through the nose and let
1:18
it out with a sigh. Welcome home.
1:24
If you've tuned in over the last few weeks, you've walked with me
1:28
through our initial launch trio. It was an intense but beautiful
1:32
journey where we explored the entire life cycle of the Lotus
1:37
flower as a mirror for our own lives.
1:40
First, we looked at the heavy, dark, disorienting reality of
1:45
the mud, those moments in life where you feel buried by
1:48
circumstance, grief, or transition.
1:52
Then we learned how to face the rough currents of life by
1:56
constructing flexible yet resilient boundaries rather than
2:00
rigid walls. Last week, we tackled the
2:04
terrifying, vulnerable act of unfolding our pedals.
2:09
And we learned how to overcome imposter syndrome and actually
2:12
expand our internal capacity to hold joy without waiting for
2:17
that other shoe to drop. But today, let's take a step
2:22
back. We need to look at the harsh,
2:26
unvarnished reality of personal growth.
2:29
It's a truth that many Wellness spaces skip over.
2:33
But as a coach, I refuse to ignore it.
2:37
Here it is. You can have the deepest, most
2:41
resilient roots. You can set the most articulate,
2:45
textbook perfect boundaries. You can have a mind that is
2:50
fully and beautifully ready to bloom.
2:53
But if your pond is toxic, your bloom will eventually wither.
2:59
A Lotus flower doesn't grow in a vacuum, and neither do we.
3:03
It's not an isolated unit of willpower.
3:06
It is entirely, beautifully, and terrifyingly dependent on its
3:11
ecosystem. It relies, day in and day out,
3:16
on the pH balance of the water, the rich nutrients hidden in the
3:20
sediment, the pristine sunlight filtering down from above, and
3:26
the helpful organisms swimming around its base.
3:29
It thrives because its environment supports thriving.
3:34
It blooms because the pond makes blooming possible.
3:40
As a National Board Certified Health and Wellness coach, I see
3:44
a devastatingly common pitfall when people try to make lasting
3:48
changes in their lives. They focus 100% of their energy
3:53
on raw willpower. They think if I just try harder,
3:58
if I wake up at 5:00 AM through sheer force of mind, if I just
4:03
white knuckle it through this toxic workplace or this chaotic
4:08
routine, we'll all be fine. But human psychology tells us a
4:13
completely different story. Willpower is not an infinite
4:18
fountain. It's a finite and highly
4:21
exhaustible resource. It runs out usually by 4:00 PM
4:25
on a Tuesday when you're tired, hungry, and stressed.
4:30
Today, we're shifting the paradigm.
4:33
We're moving the conversation away from individual grit and
4:37
toward intentional environmental design.
4:41
We're talking about how to audit, clean, and curate your
4:45
own personal pond so that your growth becomes sustainable for
4:50
the long haul. Welcome to the deep dive in
5:04
behavioral medicine and coaching psychology.
5:07
We don't look at human behavior as just a series of random,
5:11
isolated moral choices. We don't look at a habit and
5:15
say, oh, that person just lacks discipline.
5:19
Instead, we look at behavior through the lens of context.
5:24
We call this environmental design or context management.
5:30
The core truth of behavioral science is simple and I want you
5:34
to internalize this so you can stop beating yourself up.
5:40
Your environment will always win over your willpower eventually.
5:47
Let's look at the underlying neurology of why this happens.
5:52
Your brain is a brilliant, hyper efficient prediction machine.
5:57
Your nervous system is constantly silently scanning
6:01
your physical and digital surroundings for cues.
6:05
It actually processes 11,000,000 bits of data every second, but
6:13
your conscious mind is only able to process about 40 to 50 bits.
6:19
That means the vast majority of what's shaping your behavior is
6:24
happening completely below your conscious awareness level.
6:29
When your brain detects a cue in your environment, it triggers an
6:33
automatic involuntary habit loop because it's trying to save
6:38
energy. Let's ground this in real life.
6:43
Think about your physical home or office space.
6:47
If you walk into a room that's cluttered, covered in unfinished
6:51
paperwork, dishes piling up, and visual chaos, what happens?
6:57
You might not consciously think I'm stressed, but your brain
7:02
interprets that visual noise as a state of the low grade
7:07
emergency, kind of like a low grade fever.
7:11
It flags the environment as unpredictable and unsafe.
7:16
Instantly, your adrenal glands release a subtle, steady drip
7:21
drop of cortisol, the stress hormone.
7:24
You're now operating in a mild state of fight or flight.
7:29
When you're in fight or flight, your prefrontal cortex, that
7:33
part of your brain responsible for long term planning,
7:37
emotional regulation, and healthy choices, essentially
7:41
goes offline. Your brain shifts into survival
7:45
mode, which naturally craves quick comfort like high sugar
7:50
foods, mindless scrolling, or emotional reactivity.
7:54
You didn't fail because you lack willpower.
7:57
You failed because your environment triggered a survival
8:01
loop. Let's talk about the digital
8:04
pond. Consider your smartphone for a
8:07
moment. If the first thing you do when
8:10
your eyes open in the morning is reach out your hand, grab that
8:14
glass rectangle and flood your retinas with notifications,
8:18
breaking news headlines, text messages, and urgent work
8:23
emails, what have you done? You've instantly plunged your
8:28
young, vulnerable Lotus stem into highly turbulent, polluted
8:33
water before your day has even begun.
8:36
You've allowed the external world to hijack your nervous
8:39
system before you've even taken your first conscious breath.
8:44
In psychology there's a famous concept known as ego depletion.
8:50
Developed by researchers looking at self-control.
8:53
It proves that every single choice you make during the day,
8:57
from deciding what to wear, to resisting the urge to snap at a
9:01
Co worker to choosing a healthy lunch, uses up a shared pool of
9:06
mental energy. If your environment is poorly
9:10
designed, you're wasting precious drops of that energy
9:14
just resisting temptations or fighting through chaos.
9:19
If you have to fight your environment all day, by the time
9:23
you get home at night, your ego depletion is at its peak.
9:28
Your willpower tank is bone dry. When you're trying to heal from
9:34
things like burnout, navigate a major life transition, or even
9:39
recover your mental health, relying on raw motivation is a
9:44
losing game. Motivation is a feeling, and
9:48
feelings are fickle. They change based on the
9:51
weather, your blood sugar, or how you slept last night.
9:57
Environmental design, however, relies on systems.
10:02
It operates independent of how you feel.
10:05
If you want to maintain your new growth, you have to
10:09
intentionally design your surroundings to make healthy
10:13
choices, the path of least resistance.
10:16
You want to make the healthy choices the easiest choices, and
10:20
the unhealthy choices the hardest choices.
10:25
We need to clean up the physical and digital water in your pond
10:29
so that your roots don't have to work twice as hard just to
10:32
survive. Now let's move deeper into the
10:45
pod. We've talked about the physical
10:48
objects, the digital screens, But environment is not just made
10:53
of matter and pixels. It's made of energy.
10:57
It's made of the people we share our space with.
11:01
In sociology and epidemiologic medicine, there's a fascinating,
11:06
deeply documented phenomenon known as social contagion.
11:12
One of the most famous long term projects on this is the
11:16
Framingham Heart Study. Researchers tracked thousands of
11:20
people over decades to see how health habits spread.
11:25
What they found was staggering. If a person's close friend
11:30
became obese, that person's risk of obesity increased by 57%.
11:37
If a sibling became a smoker, that risk also climbed.
11:42
But it wasn't just physical health.
11:45
They found that happiness, loneliness, anxiety, and even
11:50
cooperative behaviors spread through social networks almost
11:54
exactly like a virus. Why does this happen?
12:00
It comes down to our neurobiology, specifically a
12:04
system in the brain called mirror neurons.
12:08
Human beings are tribal creatures.
12:11
We're social, and we're biologically wired for belonging
12:15
because in the wilderness of our evolutionary past, isolation
12:20
meant death. When you sit across from
12:23
someone, your mirror neurons are constantly firing, mimicking
12:28
their facial expressions, their posture, and their emotional
12:32
tone. Your nervous system literally Co
12:36
regulates with theirs. If your closest circle of
12:40
friends or colleagues consists of people who prioritize
12:44
movement, deep rest, emotional vulnerability, and personal
12:48
accountability, your nervous system naturally matches that
12:53
frequency. You'll gravitate toward those
12:56
healthy behaviors without even having to think about it.
13:00
It becomes the cultural norm of your micropod.
13:05
On the opposite side of that, what happens if your primary
13:09
social circle bonds exclusively through chronic complaining,
13:14
unmitigated cynicism, gossip, and self sabotaging habits?
13:21
What if every time you hang out, the currency of connection is
13:24
tearing other people down or wallowing in helplessness?
13:29
Your nervous system will automatically match that lower
13:33
frequency just to fit in, just to maintain that bond.
13:38
If you start trying to rise, if you start changing your habits,
13:43
setting boundaries, or speaking positively, it can create an
13:48
unconscious friction. Now I want to pause here and
13:53
speak directly to your heart because I know what might be
13:57
coming up for some of you right now.
13:59
You might be feeling a sense of guilt or anxiety.
14:04
I want you to hear me clearly on this.
14:07
As a coach, I am absolutely not telling you to go out today,
14:13
pack your bags, and completely cut off every family member,
14:18
partner, or lifelong friend who isn't on a Wellness journey.
14:22
That's completely unrealistic, it's harsh, and frankly, it
14:26
doesn't align with a holistic, compassionate approach to
14:30
health. We can't expect the people
14:33
around us to change just because we're changing.
14:38
Everyone is walking their own path, blooming on their own
14:42
timeline, and often fighting battles we know nothing about.
14:49
But here's what I am asking you to do.
14:52
I want you to look at the people in your pond with radical,
14:56
loving, and uncompromising honesty.
15:01
You need to know the difference between the people who can pour
15:05
clean, oxygen rich water into your space and the people who
15:10
are constantly stirring up sediment at the bottom of the
15:13
pond because they're uncomfortable watching you rise.
15:18
Sometimes when people see you changing, it shines a mirror on
15:23
their own stagnation and their reaction might be to try to pull
15:28
you back down to the mud where it feels safe and familiar.
15:33
Growing above the mud means accepting a painful but
15:36
necessary truth. You might have to intentionally
15:40
limit your exposure to certain currents, not out of anger, not
15:46
out of malice or self-righteous superiority, but out of absolute
15:51
quiet necessity for your own survival.
15:56
You can love someone deeply from a safe distance while still
16:00
protecting the sanctity of your internal peace.
16:13
We're about to dive into a case study for today, but first I
16:18
want to take 30 seconds to shout out to someone from our
16:21
incredible community. Every single week.
16:25
I read every written review that comes in on this podcast, and I
16:30
want to read our first review of the week from listener Carmen.
16:36
She wrote. I'm grateful for this podcast.
16:39
This has been a huge help with my stress and changing my
16:43
mindset. Carmen, thank you so much from
16:46
the bottom of my heart and for dropping that clean water into
16:50
our pond. If you want a shout out on an
16:54
upcoming episode, hit the five star button and write a quick
16:58
note about a specific micro habit or tool that's been
17:02
helping your nervous system right now.
17:05
I read every single one, and your words help our community to
17:09
continue to rise and bloom. All right, let's step back into
17:15
the studio and take a look at our client case study for today.
17:29
To ground all of this science and theory into reality, I want
17:34
to tell you a story about a client of mine named Elena.
17:38
When Elena first came to see me in coaching, she was in the
17:42
middle of a massive high stakes career transition.
17:46
She'd spent years working as an individual contributor, but she
17:50
had recently been promoted into a high level corporate
17:54
management role. This job came with a massive
17:57
increase in salary, but it also came with an overwhelming
18:01
mountain of pressure, constant fires to put out, and a culture
18:06
of hyper urgency. Elena was an incredibly
18:09
dedicated client. She was doing fantastic, deeply
18:14
intentional work. In our private coaching
18:16
sessions, we established that 3 anchor check in, which I spoke
18:21
about in Episode 1. It's a practice where she would
18:24
pause three times a day to check her posture, her breath, and her
18:29
emotional state. She was setting beautiful
18:32
boundaries around her evening work hours, leaving her laptop
18:36
at the office and prioritizing excellent sleep hygiene.
18:41
Internally, her mindset was shifting.
18:44
She was doing the work. But despite all of this
18:48
incredible internal effort, every single Monday morning,
18:52
like clockwork, Elena experienced a massive,
18:56
debilitating relapse of severe anxiety.
19:01
She would get physical symptoms, a racing heart, a tight chest
19:06
and a knot in her stomach. The moment she pulled into the
19:08
office parking lot, she felt like she was failing, she told
19:14
me. I guess I just don't have the
19:16
mental toughness for this role. I don't have the willpower to
19:20
handle all this stress. I listened to her carefully and
19:25
I said, Elena, I'm wondering if there might be something more to
19:29
this situation. Let's zoom out on this picture a
19:33
bit and look at the context here.
19:36
Walk me through your Monday morning and tell me exactly what
19:39
your senses experience from the moment you cross the threshold
19:43
of your building. We dug into those small details
19:46
of her routine and we realized that Elena was walking into a
19:51
literal toxic pond every Monday morning.
19:55
Her physical desk was situated in an open concept high traffic
19:59
area. Crucially, her desk directly
20:03
face a massive communal whiteboard.
20:06
And on that whiteboard, the senior leadership team used
20:10
bright red dry erase markers to write out running lists of
20:14
missed deadlines, delayed projects, and underperforming
20:18
metrics. So every time Elena lifted her
20:22
eyes from her computer screen, her visual cortex was flooded
20:27
with the color red and messages of failure.
20:30
To make matters worse, she had a colleague.
20:34
Let's call him Mark. Mark was a nice person, but she
20:38
was profoundly burned out and deeply cynical.
20:42
Every morning, within 10 minutes of Elena arriving, Mark would
20:46
stop by her desk, lean against her cubicle wall, and spend 20
20:51
minutes dumping his anxieties, corporate gossip, and complaints
20:56
about how terrible management was.
20:59
Look at the math of Elena's environment.
21:02
Her internal growth was solid, but her external ecosystem was
21:07
actively choking her growth. She was trying to grow a
21:12
beautiful, delicate Lotus flower while someone was pouring bleach
21:17
into the water every morning. We brainstormed some options and
21:23
decided Elena wasn't ready to quit her job.
21:26
She felt like that would be an escape and not a design
21:29
solution. Instead, we worked on what I
21:33
call ecosystem upgrades, small strategic interventions to alter
21:38
the cues in her environment. First, we redesigned her
21:43
physical desk space. We couldn't move her cubicle,
21:47
but we could change her perspective so that her back was
21:50
completely to that chaotic red ink whiteboard.
21:54
It was like out of sight, out of mind.
21:57
Then, in the space where she used to look at the whiteboard,
22:00
we brought in a small vibrant green plant and a small desktop
22:05
sun lamp. This simple change completely
22:08
altered the visual data entering her brain.
22:12
Instead of signaling danger, her environment now signaled life,
22:16
warmth, and nature to her nervous system.
22:20
Second, we designed a social buffer for her interactions with
22:24
Mark. We anticipated the cue the next
22:28
Monday when Mark walked over to start his morning vent session.
22:33
Elena was prepared before he could even begin.
22:36
She set a physical and verbal boundary.
22:40
She put on her noise cancelling headphones, gave him a warm,
22:44
genuine smile and said, hey Mark, I love catching up with
22:48
you, but I have a massive project deadline I need to focus
22:51
on this morning so I can't chat today.
22:55
And she kept her headphones on. Do you know what happened?
23:00
Mark wasn't offended, he just found someone else to vent to.
23:04
And by cleaning up just those two small, seemingly
23:08
insignificant variables in her pond, Elena stopped drowning on
23:12
Monday mornings. Her cortisol level stabilized.
23:17
Her heart rate remained calm. She didn't need more willpower.
23:21
She needed a better layout. She gave her Lotus stem that
23:26
structural space it needed to stay upright.
23:38
Now let's build a bridge from Elena's story directly into your
23:42
life this week. I don't want this podcast just
23:46
to be something you listen to passively and then forget about.
23:50
I want us to conduct a practical real time coaching exercise
23:54
together right now. I'd like to call this the Four
23:59
Zone Ecosystem Audit. We're going to look at the four
24:03
primary inputs that feed your personal pond every single day.
24:09
If you're in a safe space to do so, grab a pen and a piece of
24:13
paper or open a blank note on your phone.
24:16
If you're driving or walking, just think through these 4 zones
24:20
with me mentally. I'm going to ask you 4 questions
24:25
and I want you to answer them with absolute radical honesty.
24:31
Zone One, your physical environment.
24:35
Look at the spaces where you spend most of your time.
24:38
Your bedroom, your kitchen, your car, or your workspace.
24:44
Here's the question. Is there one specific area of
24:48
chronic clutter, disorganization, or friction
24:53
that actively drains your energy or stresses you out every time
24:56
you look at it? Is it a messy closet?
25:00
A desk covered in random papers? A sink full of dishes?
25:06
Here's your action step. I'm not asking you to clean your
25:10
entire house this weekend. That's too much.
25:13
I want you to pick just one small zone, just a single
25:19
drawer, a single desktop or your bedside table and clear it
25:24
completely. Then turn it into a visual
25:28
sanctuary of absolute calm. Let your eyes land on peace Zone
25:35
2, your digital environment. Let's open up your phone and
25:41
look at your screen time and your layout.
25:44
Here's the question. Do you have specific apps, news
25:49
sites, or social media accounts that consistently leave you
25:53
feeling empty, anxious, insecure, or angry the moment
25:59
you close them? And here's your action step.
26:04
This week, I'd like to encourage you to practice some digital
26:07
landscaping. Take those triggering apps and
26:11
move them completely off your home screen.
26:14
Hide them inside a folder on the very last page of your phone so
26:19
you have to intentionally search for them.
26:22
Better yet, turn off every single non essential
26:26
notification, delete accounts or unfollow people who trigger what
26:32
I call upper limit anxiety. That feeling that you aren't
26:36
doing enough, being enough, or buying enough.
26:42
Zone 3, Your social environment. Now let's look at your
26:47
relational ecosystem. Here's the question Who are the
26:53
three to five people you spend the most time talking to,
26:58
texting with, or interacting with on a weekly basis?
27:03
When you leave an interaction with them, do you feel filled up
27:07
or do you feel emotionally depleted?
27:11
Do they breathe life into the new, evolving version of
27:14
yourself, or do you feel like they constantly pull you back
27:18
into old, stagnant versions of who you used to be?
27:24
And here's your action step. Identify a single clean water
27:30
person in your life. Someone who genuinely loves you,
27:35
cheers for your growth, and makes you feel safe.
27:39
Commit to reaching out to that one person this week.
27:43
Schedule a quick 20 minute coffee date, call them on your
27:46
drive home, or simply send them a text message expressing your
27:51
gratitude for their presence in your life.
27:54
Flood your pond with clean water.
27:58
And last but not least, zone 4, your mental environment.
28:04
Finally, let's look at your cognitive consumption.
28:08
Here's the question what are you actively feeding your mind,
28:13
especially during the vulnerable transition windows of your day,
28:17
Specifically those first 30 minutes after you wake up and
28:22
the last 30 minutes before you fall asleep?
28:26
What kind of media, true crime podcast, political arguments, or
28:31
an intense television shows are you marinating your brain in
28:35
right before your subconscious mind processes your day?
28:40
And here's your final action step this week.
28:44
Try creating a sacred evening buffer for the last 20 minutes
28:50
of your day. Swap out mindless scrolling or
28:54
stressful media consumption for something that actively feeds
28:58
your curiosity, your soul, and your peace.
29:03
Read a chapter of fiction, listen to ambient instrumental
29:07
music, write in a journal, or listen to a calming guided
29:12
meditation. By auditing and adjusting these
29:17
4 zones, my friends, you take the immense, unfair pressure off
29:22
your willpower. You stop fighting yourself.
29:27
You design an ecosystem that naturally and automatically
29:31
pulls your stem upward toward the light.
29:44
As we close out our episode today, we're going to continue
29:47
with the ongoing deep rhythm of rising above the mud.
29:51
Moving forward into our upcoming content calendar, we're going to
29:56
use this model to continue to explore deep, specialized, and
30:01
highly evidence based pillars of health, Wellness, and human
30:05
flourishing over the coming weeks.
30:08
Specifically, we're going to dive into the profound science
30:12
of sleep psychology and circadian rhythms, the
30:17
fascinating biology of stress and how to transition your
30:21
nervous system out of chronic burnout, and the intricate
30:25
connection between gut health, nutrition, and your emotional
30:30
resilience. We're also going to be hosting
30:34
some truly incredible guest experts on the show.
30:38
I am so excited to announce that our next episode will be our
30:43
first video and also our first guest episode.
30:48
I'll be joined by the amazing Mary Alice Cater, who serves as
30:53
program approval and continuing Education Manager at the
30:58
National Board for Health and Wellness Coaching.
31:01
Mary, Alice and I discussed the importance of health and
31:05
Wellness coaching in the healthcare system and the
31:08
significance of certification in health coaching, along with the
31:13
role of CPT codes and the importance of consumer
31:17
protection standards. Trust me, you're not going to
31:22
want to miss this episode. In future guest episodes this
31:26
season, we'll focus on giving you even more practical hands on
31:31
tools to design A thriving life pond.
31:35
Thank you so much for choosing to join me today, and thank you
31:39
for showing up for yourself and for taking the time to care for
31:43
the environment that holds you. As we step back into our day, I
31:49
want you to take one more deep, grounding breath with me.
31:56
Look around at your immediate physical space, notice the cues,
32:02
and remember, you are not weak. You're simply human, and you
32:07
deserve an ecosystem that helps you bloom.
32:11
No mud, no Lotus. Keep rising, my friends, and
32:15
I'll see you right here next week.