Latest / Overwhelmed Working Woman: Boost Productivity, Master Time Management, Overcome Overwhelm & Stop People Pleasing / #25| Bonus Episode: Navigating Life Transitions In The Mindfulness Mode Podcast

Transcript

#25| Bonus Episode: Navigating Life Transitions In The Mindfulness Mode Podcast · Overwhelmed Working Woman: Boost Productivity, Master Time Management, Overcome Overwhelm & Stop People Pleasing

0:04
Michelle: Hey, I'm Michelle Gauthier and you're listening to the Overwhelmed Working Woman podcast.
0:09
Michelle: Hey friends, today I have a bonus episode for you.
0:14
Michelle: It is from when I was on a podcast called Mindfulness Mode with Bruce Langford.
0:19
Michelle: If you haven't heard of or listened to this podcast, it's a really good one.
0:23
Michelle: He talks to all kinds of people.
0:25
Michelle: He interviews a lot of people who work in the mindfulness space, lots of great authors of books that you may have read or heard of, people who use mindfulness for their jobs, et cetera.
0:35
Michelle: It's really cool.
0:35
Michelle: It's a great podcast.
0:37
Michelle: When I first wanted to be on this podcast, I was a little bit intimidated because he's kind of a big deal.
0:42
Michelle: This podcast has over 800 episodes.
0:45
Michelle: It's in like the top 0.05% of podcasts.
0:49
Michelle: The first time I asked him to be on, he said no.
0:51
Michelle: He said all of his spots were full, but instead of making that mean anything about me or my business or my credentials, I just kept asking him.
1:00
Michelle: And on the third time, he said he'd love to have me on as a guest.
1:04
Michelle: I did the interview with him.
1:06
Michelle: It went great.
1:07
Michelle: I loved him.
1:08
Michelle: He has great energy, great personality.
1:10
Michelle: At the end, after we stopped recording, he said well, I'm glad we finally got to do this.
1:15
Michelle: I said, yeah, you just basically knew I was going to keep asking you until you said yes.
1:20
Michelle: He just laughed.
1:20
Michelle: He did not confirm or deny that.
1:22
Michelle: No matter how I got there, I just wanted to share this episode with you today.
1:27
Michelle: One of the things I talk about on here in my mindfulness journey is my journey to become a parent and how it was when I adopted my kids, specifically my first son, who we had absolutely zero warning on that we were going to get to adopt him, or that he even had been born.
1:44
Michelle: If you want to hear more about that, take a listen to this episode.
1:49
Bruce: Michelle, are you in mindfulness mode?
1:51
Michelle: I am, yes, I am.
1:52
Michelle: Pretty much permanently, or at least I try to be.
1:56
Bruce: That's awesome.
1:56
Bruce: You look so relaxed.
1:57
Bruce: You seem so happy and smiling.
2:00
Bruce: Wow, that's good.
2:01
Bruce: What does mindfulness mean to you, Michelle?
2:04
Michelle: I think, if I had to say one definition for it, for me it means just really being aware of how I feel and what I'm thinking, really being in that present moment and knowing, okay, this is how I'm feeling and this is the thought that's causing that, and just sort of watching that happen without being really attached to it.
2:25
Bruce: What was the trigger that caused you to move from a 20-year successful career in the corporate world to just getting out of that and doing something completely different?
2:37
Michelle: Yes, well, interestingly enough, it was a podcast that really did have that moment for me, but I think I knew for several years that I was living a life that wasn't in alignment with my most authentic self.
2:51
Michelle: I had always liked working in the corporate world and I enjoyed my job and my coworkers, but I just didn't feel like I was really making a big difference and something just kept coming to me and telling me that I should do that.
3:03
Michelle: I also, at the time, was just extremely busy all the time and I made myself busy so I didn't have to sit in the silence of my own mind.
3:14
Michelle: I felt like everything was out of control and that I was trying so hard to keep it in control.
3:20
Michelle: And one night I was listening to a podcast.
3:23
Michelle: I wish I could remember the name of the podcast, because I'd love to give this person credit, but I was listening to a podcast and a life coach was the guest.
3:29
Michelle: She was talking about how she helps people change her life.
3:33
Michelle: It was in a completely different way than what I do, but I just thought: "that's it.
3:37
Michelle: That's the thing that I'm supposed to be doing".
3:39
Michelle: So r ight then I Googled Best Life Coach, found Martha Beck, I read a couple of her books, but just within 24 hours I had signed up to become a life coach and do her training.
3:51
Michelle: I still had this busy job where I had tons of responsibility and traveled all the time.
3:57
Michelle: I had two little kids.
3:58
Michelle: I had a marriage that was on the rocks and I signed up to take on this additional thing because I just knew that that was it.
4:04
Michelle: I think that's the first time I'd ever made a decision like that just straight away right from the heart.
4:10
Bruce: Wow.
4:10
Bruce: So Martha Beck is the person that you signed up with.
4:13
Bruce: Was she your coach personally?
4:16
Michelle: She was.
4:17
Michelle: I did her course, so she was the coach of the course.
4:20
Michelle: She was not my one-on-one coach, but yes, so I studied under her for six months in order to get trained from her life coaching school.
4:30
Bruce: Isn't she amazing, she's amazing.
4:32
Michelle: She really is.
4:34
Michelle: Yes, she can.
4:36
Michelle: .
4:36
Michelle: Just she's got a level of calmness and trust in herself and the universe that is just inspiring.
4:43
Michelle: So I really loved that.
4:44
Michelle: And it was very different because I was working in financial services in a very corporate environment.
4:49
Michelle: So just even thinking in a different way and I'm not sure how familiar you are with her background, but she has a PhD in Eastern Studies and she does a lot with like Buddhism and thinking in that way.
5:02
Michelle: So learning to just think in a completely different way than I had ever been taught or raised was just fascinating.
5:07
Michelle: I loved it.
5:08
Bruce: Right, what's one of your favorite books that she's written?
5:14
Michelle: Finding Your Own North Star is definitely where I would start if somebody was looking for a book.
5:19
Michelle: If you're just feeling like I described myself feeling a little bit lost, she really helps you think through getting in touch with yourself, learning to listen to your own intuition, and figure out what you want to do.
5:30
Michelle: That's a great book.
5:32
Bruce: Right.
5:32
Bruce: So can you remember when your life became more calm and can you remember that transition?
5:38
Michelle: I sure can, yes.
5:40
Michelle: So I did that training for about six months and then I started seeing clients on the side while I was still working, and then I was trying to hold it all together and it sort of all came crashing down because I just couldn't do it anymore.
5:56
Michelle: So, all within the space of about two months, I got separated from my husband.
6:01
Michelle: At the time I decided that I was going to quit my job and start my own life coaching business.
6:07
Michelle: We sold the house we lived in.
6:08
Michelle: I bought this house that I'm in now and renovated that and then, just to make myself even more crazy, got a puppy.
6:19
Bruce: Oh, and that can make life crazy, oh my gosh.
6:21
Michelle: Yes.
6:22
Michelle: So my two kids and I were just trying to figure out how to live life in this new way and I was trying to start this business, and so it got worse before it got better.
6:32
Michelle: And I think that's true of all change, that sometimes you just run into that point where you think, "this is so hard" Because when you're going towards something that feels like your true calling, sometimes we get the perception that it should be easy.
6:43
Michelle: But it wasn't easy at first.
6:45
Michelle: It was really hard to make all those changes and so I would say, about six months into that, when I sort of got my kids into a new schedule, we were settled in our new house, our puppy was a bigger puppy and my business had started, where I had a few clients, and I could see okay, I'm going to be able to make it with this that it really started to calm down, and that was in 2018.
7:07
Michelle: And since then, I have just worked full time as a life coach and been able to help lots of people.
7:14
Michelle: So once I got to that point where it started to feel calm, it just from there has just gotten better and better and better.
7:21
Bruce: Wow.
7:21
Bruce: What a great story, Michelle.
7:22
Bruce: That's really awesome.
7:23
Bruce: Can you tell us a story of a transition that someone that you've worked for has made?
7:29
Bruce: Worked with someone of your clients.
7:31
Michelle: Yes, yes, absolutely so.
7:33
Michelle: Usually when people come to me, I would say my most typical client is a woman who has an executive type job, like I used to have, and is also a mom, so feeling really overwhelmed with trying to create that balance.
7:47
Michelle: And some of my biggest, proudest successes are when people like people come to me and say, for example, I hate my job, I hate my boss, I don't want to do this anymore.
7:58
Michelle: Sometimes what happens is those people will get a different job or start their own business.
8:03
Michelle: But I feel like it's a real success when, just with mindfulness, they can stay in that job and work with that boss and feel much less affected by it, almost get to being neutral.
8:14
Michelle: That's a huge win.
8:16
Michelle: And then when they do that, they can make a clear decision from a calm place to say do I actually really want to leave or do I want to stay here?
8:24
Michelle: So I would say about 50% of my clients end up staying in the marriage they're in or the job that they're in.
8:30
Michelle: But they've totally changed their outlook on life from mindfulness.
8:33
Michelle: They're way more present with their kids.
8:35
Michelle: They enjoy their relationships so much more.
8:37
Michelle: So I kind of have that category.
8:39
Michelle: And then the other category is people who do decide from a place of calm too.
8:44
Michelle: I don't want to do this anymore.
8:46
Michelle: So I've had people who quit their job to stay home.
8:48
Michelle: I've had people who start their own successful businesses, go to a different industry.
8:53
Michelle: Sometimes people get divorced if that's the thing that they want to do.
8:57
Michelle: So I just really see them through getting clear on what they want and then go work with them all the way through those changes.
9:06
Bruce: I know you have two adopted children and I'm really interested in the story about that.
9:11
Bruce: What have they taught you about mindfulness?
9:14
Michelle: My children.
9:15
Michelle: Yeah, oh my gosh.
9:17
Michelle: I feel like as a parent, the key to success is being mindful.
9:21
Michelle: So I think a lot of times, even this morning, my daughter was just getting ready to go to school and I had made her breakfast and she was just in a cranky mood and I had to notice okay, what I'm making that mean is that she's being disrespectful to me or that she doesn't appreciate that I made her this peanut butter toast (not like I made her a gourmet breakfast), and I just thought maybe she's worried about something at school today.
9:46
Michelle: I'm not going to attach to what I believe this means.
9:49
Michelle: And so when she left, I was able to just give her a hug and say I hope you have a great day.
9:52
Michelle: I'll see you after school.
9:55
Bruce: Nice.
9:56
Michelle: Yes, yeah.
9:57
Bruce: Yeah, I totally agree.
9:58
Bruce: Mindfulness can help us so much as parents.
10:01
Michelle: Yes.
10:02
Bruce: Yeah, yeah.
10:03
Bruce: So did you get both children at the same time?
10:07
Bruce: Did you adopt them at the same time or no?
10:09
Michelle: No, we did not.
10:10
Michelle: My son is the older one, he's 15, and the story with him.
10:17
Michelle: We adopted him in Texas, which is where we lived at the time, and he was a baby and we had been trying to have a baby for about seven years and had been on the list for adoption and it felt like at that point - I wish I had a mindfulness coach then; I was not aware of mindfulness at that time - but it just felt like nothing is working and I'm such an optimistic person, I didn't want to give up.
10:41
Michelle: So by the time we put our name on the list for adoption, I said, "we can put our name on here.
10:46
Michelle: We're not getting any stuff for the baby.
10:48
Michelle: It's that will jinx it, which is such a silly thought.
10:52
Michelle: But that was the thought that I had.
10:53
Michelle: So we got this call that our son had been born and that his birth parents had chosen us to be his parents and they wanted us to come and pick him up that exact day.
11:03
Michelle: So this call was at like three o'clock and they wanted us to pick him up that night and she said can you come to Midland Texas tonight?
11:11
Michelle: And I said yes, and I'm Googling where is Midland Texas?
11:15
Michelle: I didn't know where it was, but I knew that I was going there that night.
11:18
Michelle: So again, I was in the corporate world at this point.
11:21
Michelle: So I hung up from that call, called my then- husband, their dad, told him the story.
11:26
Michelle: He said he was going to come home.
11:27
Michelle: Then at four o'clock I got on and led a whole conference call for a project that I was leading, hung up, threw some stuff in a bag and then we went to go pick him up and we came back home within 24 hours and we had absolutely nothing for him.
11:41
Michelle: Wow, yes, we were just showered with gifts and our friends brought over a pack and play and clothes and we never even had to go to the store and by that time a friend had done an online registry for us.
11:55
Michelle: I got to be friends with the UPS guy because he was coming every day with all these packages and I really wish everyone could experience that much love and joy at one time in their life.
12:07
Michelle: It was absolutely amazing.
12:09
Bruce: That is incredible, and so he was newborn then.
12:13
Michelle: He was newborn.
12:13
Michelle: Yep, he was two days old.
12:16
Bruce: Wow, wow.
12:17
Bruce: That is such a beautiful story.
12:20
Michelle: It was amazing.
12:21
Michelle: It was amazing.
12:23
Bruce: And so, how did your life change from that moment on?
12:26
Bruce: How did it change you as a person?
12:29
Michelle: It just really made me realize that, although I always enjoyed work and I was always very focused on success and getting to the next level, that all of a sudden that was second or third priority, and he became our number one priority.
12:47
Michelle: Not because I felt like it was my duty as a parent, because that's what I really wanted.
12:52
Michelle: I just absolutely loved being a mom.
12:54
Michelle: I knew in my heart I always wanted to be a mom.
12:56
Michelle: I knew it since I was a little girl, and so it just felt so right, so right.
13:03
Michelle: And, like I mentioned, we were trying to have a baby for a long time and when he was a baby I just had this realization in the moment that if that had ever worked, then my son wouldn't be my son.
13:14
Michelle: And so I just had this ultimate faith in the universe and what you're supposed to have and just being peaceful, and then you'll get what is meant to be yours.
13:24
Bruce: Right.
13:24
Bruce: Well, he's 15 now.
13:26
Bruce: How has your relationship with him changed over the years and now that he's a teenager?
13:31
Michelle: Yes, yes, he's a nice teenager, so I've got that going for me.
13:36
Michelle: We have a really close relationship and we, considering he's a teenage boy, we both like cars, so we have that in common.
13:47
Michelle: We spend a lot of time doing that, but we still have fun like we used to have when he was young.
13:53
Michelle: We just do different things together and, of course, he's got a sister.
13:56
Michelle: He's had a sister since he was three, so it's just the three of us and we're just really tight.
14:03
Michelle: We spend a lot of time together.
14:05
Bruce: Yeah, that's beautiful.
14:05
Bruce: That really is.
14:07
Bruce: I'm so, so excited for you because it just sounds like your life is a life that you were really striving for.
14:17
Michelle: I truly feel like that.
14:18
Michelle: I really do.
14:19
Michelle: I just wrote a blog post the other day and in there mentioned today, just this average day.
14:28
Michelle: I have the life that I dreamed of and I don't wanna miss out on that by looking towards the future, hoping for something else.
14:35
Michelle: I just wanna be in appreciation of just your average, you know, Wednesday.
14:42
Bruce: Yeah, Michelle.
14:42
Bruce: Do you have a story about bullying where mindfulness would have made a difference?
14:46
Michelle: Yes.
14:47
Michelle: Well, I think as a parent, you have to have a lot of mindfulness around bullying.
14:52
Michelle: It just seems so prevalent right now and I just was reading something that after COVID there's even more bullying because kids have less social skills and less confidence and things like that.
15:03
Michelle: But I've had experience with both of my kids being bullied at one time or another and I think, as a parent, it's a really fine line, because what I try to teach them is mindfulness and empathy for the person.
15:16
Michelle: We have no idea what's happening at their house.
15:18
Michelle: Let's try to think the best we can about why they might be doing this.
15:23
Michelle: So there's that side of it, and then there's the boundary side of it, to say you can't talk to me like that, you may not touch me, you know, those kinds of things.
15:31
Michelle: So I feel like I have to practice my own mindfulness to get clear on what I wanna say and how I wanna talk to my kids about mindfulness.
15:39
Michelle: Another thing that was really helpful when my son was going through a very hard time and feeling super anxious about going to school is we together would do tapping in the morning.
15:49
Michelle: I'm sure you've talked about that on your show plenty of times before, but that was really helpful.
15:55
Michelle: If anybody out there has kids struggling with anxiety, I just felt like the tapping was better than meditation, which both of my kids have, you know, kind of always practiced.
16:05
Michelle: But tapping just gave him something to do with his hands and calmed his body, so that was a really helpful tool during a hard bullying time.
16:16
Bruce: That's really interesting.
16:17
Bruce: I wanna ask you, Michelle, about the Burn Boot Camp.
16:21
Michelle: Yes, yes.
16:24
Michelle: So part of my mindfulness is definitely moving my body and working out.
16:30
Michelle: So I joined this gym, which is it's local here in St.
16:35
Michelle: Louis, but it's a franchise, so there are lots of them all over.
16:38
Michelle: But the reason why this is such a mindful activity for me, I love working out.
16:43
Michelle: So any kind of workout, will you know, sort of bring my worry and anxiety level down.
16:48
Michelle: But this one in particular has an amazing community and what I love about it is that the people who work out in there - there are some people who are so fit they do fitness competitions.
16:58
Michelle: There are some people in there who have a desire to lose 80 or 100 pounds and we're all in the same class and everything in between and we all cheer each other on.
17:07
Michelle: It's just such an uplifting experience every time I go there.
17:12
Michelle: So that's a big part of my mindfulness, not just for the workout, but for the community piece as well.
17:18
Bruce: And they offer nutritional support as well.
17:21
Bruce: I understand.
17:22
Michelle: Yes, yes, they do, and you get to have one-on-one meetings with the trainers, so they will help you with whatever you want If you wanna work on form for a particular activity, or if you wanna work on your eating, and they'll help you with nutrition all that is available.
17:37
Bruce: If you've got one in your area.
17:38
Michelle: I recommend it.
17:40
Bruce: Okay, okay.
17:41
Bruce: Well, in these days of so much processed foods and so much that just pulls us in different directions when it comes to food and nutrition, what are your thoughts and your comments?
17:53
Michelle: Yeah, in fact, when I was thinking about before this podcast, all the things in my life that are part of my overall mindfulness, eating is definitely on that list, and I think just trying to eat more foods that are just a single food a vegetable or a piece of lean meat or something is really part of what makes me feel good and energized, because I think my whole goal in a day is just to feel fully, not like I'm full of energy, like I just had a cup of coffee, but just consistently be able to feel calm and energized throughout a day, and eating well is really one of those for me and as a single mom, business owner, I have to just plan ahead in order to do that.
18:39
Michelle: So on Sundays I'll make all my lunches for the week so that in between clients I can just go grab something healthy and that really helps me feel overall better, which keeps me paying great attention to my kids and focusing well on my clients and having the energy to exercise.
18:59
Bruce: Is there any kind of food that you really totally try to avoid?
19:04
Michelle: Yes, for me personally it's dairy.
19:07
Michelle: Dairy just doesn't sit well with my body.
19:11
Michelle: It just makes me feel tired and upsets my stomach, so I just don't eat that at all.
19:16
Michelle: When I first found that out I thought it was a tragedy, and now I'm just used to it.
19:20
Michelle: It's not even a big deal.
19:23
Bruce: So where do you get your calcium?
19:25
Bruce: Because some people would say they depend on dairy to get their calcium.
19:30
Michelle: Yes, I take a supplement, and then I also use non-dairy kinds of milk that have calcium, and I drink orange juice with calcium too, so I seek it out in other ways.
19:41
Bruce: Right, okay.
19:42
Michelle: And I miss ice cream and pizza, don't get me wrong, but it's not worth it.
19:46
Michelle: It's not worth having no energy and just feeling yucky.
19:50
Bruce: No, definitely not.
19:52
Bruce: Yeah Well, I want to ask you about what you do in your spare time.
19:57
Bruce: What do you enjoy as a hobby and just for fun?
20:01
Michelle: Oh, my kids and I just got electric bikes, so that's our newest hobby.
20:05
Michelle: It's so much fun.
20:06
Michelle: My parents had them and we went to go visit them in Phoenix and they my dad, for a present bought us each all three of us in electric bikes.
20:14
Michelle: So we've been doing that lately and challenging ourselves.
20:16
Michelle: We live in a neighborhood; we don't live like in a city where it's real easy to get around to a lot of places so but we do have a lot of sidewalks.
20:24
Michelle: We've been challenging ourselves to say, "where can we ride our bikes that we used to always drive.
20:28
Michelle: So that's what we've been doing lately.
20:30
Michelle: I also really like reading.
20:32
Michelle: If you could see my bookshelf right now, it's full of self-help books.
20:36
Michelle: I just enjoy learning new things and improving myself that way.
20:42
Bruce: Oh, that's really cool, yeah, so what is a book that you've read recently that you really enjoyed?
20:48
Bruce: Anything pop into your mind.
20:50
Michelle: Yes, I still have it sitting right here on my desk.
20:53
Michelle: It's called the Gap and the Gain.
20:54
Michelle: Have you read that one?
20:56
Bruce: No, I have not.
20:56
Michelle: Oh my gosh, it's such a good mindfulness book.
20:59
Michelle: It's by Dan Sullivan and Benjamin Hardy, and the basic gist of it is if you focus on, let's say, you have a goal, say you want to get your podcast listeners to a million people, then you get up to 800,000 and you think, oh, I didn't get there.
21:20
Michelle: And this book teaches you to focus on the 800,000 and what a win that is.
21:24
Michelle: So it focuses on the gain of what you've already done, while keeping your overall goal in mind, but not suffering in the gap between what you actually accomplished and what your original goal was.
21:38
Bruce: Well, I don't know why I haven't read that book, because I have interviewed Benjamin and you know, I know Dan, and I think this book must be fantastic.
21:48
Michelle: It is so good.
21:48
Michelle: It's new-ish and I actually read it once.
21:51
Michelle: I use it with my client s lots, so I just read it again because I love it so much.
21:55
Michelle: So I definitely recommend that one.
21:57
Bruce: Okay, for sure.
21:58
Bruce: So how do you get your clients?
22:00
Bruce: Where do you find them?
22:02
Michelle: Well, a lot of referrals, and I also do have a podcast called the Overwhelmed Working Woman, so I just started that.
22:12
Michelle: I also do a lot on social media.
22:14
Michelle: I post on my blog and I have reels, so I'm always trying to offer free help to people who are feeling stuck and stressed and overwhelmed, and so that's how I get most of my clients.
22:27
Bruce: Right.
22:28
Bruce: Yeah, my notes say that your podcast Overwhelmed Working Women starts on April 24th.
22:35
Bruce: Is that right?
22:36
Michelle: Correct.
22:36
Michelle: Yes, as of this recording, that's Monday.
22:40
Bruce: Right, okay, so you must be pretty excited for this launch.
22:43
Michelle: So excited! I was thinking this morning, I feel like I'm about to birth a baby.
22:47
Michelle: I never birthed a baby, so I don't know what it feels like.
22:49
Michelle: So this podcast is it?
22:51
Michelle: I have just - I've had the idea to do a podcast for years and I've been collecting ideas of what I want to talk about, so it's just been so much fun to put that all the information that I've learned from all the training I did and coaching hundreds of clients at this point to put it into bite-size episodes, so someone who's feeling overwhelmed can take 10 or 15 minutes and feel better.
23:14
Michelle: It just gives me so much joy to think about.
23:17
Bruce: Well, tell me more about your podcast.
23:19
Bruce: Is it going to be interviews, or will it be all you giving advice?
23:23
Bruce: What will it be like?
23:24
Michelle: It will be a mix of both, but my goal is they're going to come out on Monday mornings, and the reason why I chose that is because, when I was overwhelmed and working, Monday mornings were kind of the worst, and so my goal is to provide just one quick tip for how you can be more mindful in order to feel better when it's just me doing the episode.
23:43
Michelle: And then so far, my interviews have been clients who I've worked with just to talk about how their life went from overwhelmed and stressful and what it is now and some of the tools that they use that help them the most, so that listeners can learn from that as well.
23:58
Bruce: Oh, fantastic.
23:59
Bruce: Wow, I'm really excited for you with this new podcast that is going to be so much fun.
24:05
Michelle: Thank you, may I have part of the success that you've had.
24:08
Michelle: Your podcast is amazing.
24:10
Michelle: I can't believe how many guests and episodes you've had over time.
24:12
Michelle: You're so good at it.
24:14
Bruce: Thank you so much.
24:15
Bruce: Well, I enjoy it, and if you ever would like any tips or suggestions or anything, I'd be very happy to help you.
24:23
Michelle: Oh, I would love that.
24:23
Michelle: Thank you.
24:25
Bruce: Yeah, yeah for sure.
24:26
Bruce: Well, as we move forward in the interview, I want to ask you five quick-answer questions, Michelle, so just 30-second answers are perfect.
24:32
Bruce: The first one is this who is one person who has been a powerful mindfulness mentor or influence to you?
24:42
Michelle: My dad is who I would say.
24:45
Michelle: He's not - he'd probably laugh at the idea of meditation, but he has always been so good at what we might call the law of attraction type stuff where just think about what you want to become and just put it out there and start working towards it and anything you want is possible for you to get.
25:02
Michelle: And he taught me that when I was a little girl and I just took that as the gospel and I never thought otherwise.
25:09
Michelle: So what a gift that was.
25:11
Bruce: That's a beautiful gift, for sure.
25:13
Bruce: Well, let's talk about your emotions and how mindfulness has helped you to deal with your emotions.
25:20
Michelle: Yeah, well, when I was really stressed and overwhelmed, I used to brag about how many years it had been since I cried.
25:27
Michelle: And I would say I don't get sad, nothing upsets me.
25:32
Michelle: I kind of acted like I was this, I don't know steel wall and I could just handle and do anything.
25:38
Michelle: Give me any problem, I can handle it.
25:40
Michelle: And so the way that mindfulness helps me deal with my emotions is by just allowing me to have them.
25:45
Michelle: So it's amazing.
25:47
Michelle: Now I went for so many years saying, oh my gosh, I never cry.
25:50
Michelle: I cry all the time now, and I'm kind of proud of that, because if I feel sad or if I feel touched by something that just hits me in the heart, that's what I want to do.
25:58
Michelle: And if I feel mad, I allow that as well.
26:02
Michelle: If I feel joyful, I allow that.
26:03
Michelle: So I just allow any feeling that I have, and I teach my kids to do the same.
26:08
Michelle: I don't ever want to shame them and say don't be angry, don't be sad, don't be whatever.
26:13
Michelle: Just be whatever you are.
26:14
Michelle: Tell me about it.
26:15
Michelle: Let's hold the space for you to share that with me.
26:19
Bruce: Great advice, Michelle.
26:20
Bruce: That's fantastic.
26:21
Bruce: Yeah, and so let's talk about breathing and if you have any thoughts or ideas about breathing.
26:28
Michelle: I do, I love.
26:30
Michelle: I've even heard other people on your podcast talk about it.
26:32
Michelle: But square breathing is my go-to.
26:34
Michelle: I teach that to all my clients.
26:37
Michelle: I've taught it to my kids.
26:38
Michelle: That's just where you breathe in for four, hold for four, breathe out for four and then hold it at the bottom for four, and if you do that four times around, it is magic what that can do.
26:48
Michelle: Just to calm your nervous system.
26:49
Michelle: I always use it if I wake up at night and can't fall back to sleep.
26:53
Michelle: I just do that.
26:54
Michelle: I've taught my kids to do it.
26:55
Michelle: I think it's such a powerful tool.
26:58
Bruce: Yeah, it definitely is a powerful tool.
26:59
Bruce: Well, you've already shared the book the Gap and the Gain by Dan Sullivan and Benjamin Hardy, so thank you for that.
27:07
Bruce: And are there any apps which help you with mindfulness, Michelle?
27:11
Michelle: Yes, so I meditate every day and I always use the Breathe app for meditation.
27:17
Michelle: I do, and they have tapping there too.
27:19
Michelle: I mentioned tapping earlier.
27:21
Michelle: Nick Orton does a tapping series in that app.
27:23
Michelle: Right, I do a regular meditation and then some days I do a hypnosis meditation, and I love both of those.
27:31
Michelle: It just makes my day, and if I notice that I feel out of sorts, I'll think, oh my gosh, I didn't meditate yet.
27:39
Michelle: That's what it is.
27:40
Bruce: That's what it is.
27:43
Michelle: Yes, yes.
27:44
Bruce: Yeah, well, tell me more about your daily routine.
27:48
Bruce: This is really interesting and this is not part of our five questions, but maybe you can comment on your daily routine.
27:54
Michelle: Yeah, sure, from a mindfulness perspective, the first thing I do when I wake up in the morning is I drink a big glass of water, I sit down and I do a 10-minute morning routine.
28:04
Michelle: In fact, that's something that I offer on my website.
28:07
Michelle: It's just a quick - I used to do an hour-long one and I found myself skipping it when I didn't feel like I had an hour, so I made a shortened version where you can just get in touch with your feelings.
28:18
Michelle: How am I feeling today, what am I thinking, what do I want my thought to be for the day, and what am I grateful for?
28:23
Michelle: That's essentially what I go through in the morning, and then I also work out.
28:29
Michelle: Like you asked me about my Burn Boot Camp, I go there every morning and that is a really big part of my mindfulness.
28:35
Michelle: And then, by the time I get to work and see my clients, I feel really present and connected.
28:40
Michelle: When I finish seeing my clients, I meditate and then I move over to the mom life and I make dinner and hang out with my kids in the evening, and then, when I go to bed, I go to sleep listing off the things that I'm grateful for just from that day, to kind of lull myself to sleep.
28:58
Michelle: I don't count sheep, I just do gratitude.
29:01
Bruce: Oh well, that's beautiful.
29:02
Bruce: Gratitude is so powerful, isn't it?
29:04
Michelle: It is.
29:05
Michelle: It is, in fact, another book that I absolutely love and would recommend is Thank and Go Rich.
29:11
Michelle: You know, not Think and Grow Rich, but Thank and Grow Rich, by Pam Grout.
29:16
Michelle: Have you ever interviewed her?
29:17
Michelle: She would be so great for your podcast.
29:20
Michelle: It's called it's Thank and Grow Rich, but she calls it radical gratitude and she teaches you to see gratitude in a million different ways.
29:30
Michelle: And you can't read or listen to that book without feeling your energy just go up.
29:36
Michelle: It's an awesome book.
29:38
Bruce: Oh, I'd like to check it out, and I haven't had anybody suggest that book before either.
29:42
Bruce: Oh, good yeah, Thank and Grow Rich.
29:44
Bruce: What a great name for a book.
29:46
Michelle: I know, I love it, I love it.
29:49
Bruce: Yeah, wow.
29:50
Bruce: Well, it's certainly been awesome to have you on the show, Michelle, and to just feel your vibrancy and how excited you are about life and what you do and how many people you help, and I just got to hand it to you for helping so many people in the world, and you know that's a wonderful thing that you're doing, so thank you for that.
30:11
Michelle: Yeah, it brings me absolute joy.
30:12
Michelle: It's a win-win.
30:14
Bruce: Yeah, for sure.
30:15
Bruce: So before we wrap it up, do you have any final words of advice, some final words of wisdom for our mindful tribe listeners?
30:23
Michelle: I think I would just remind people that feeling overwhelmed and stressed is a choice.
30:29
Michelle: This world today is not making us feel overwhelmed and stressed, but our thoughts about it are.
30:36
Michelle: So you always have the opportunity to make yourself feel better by changing your thoughts and changing your mindfulness, and I think that's powerful just in and of itself.
30:46
Michelle: Knowing, okay, I'm making this choice now, and I want to make a different one, and you have that inside of you to do that.
30:55
Bruce: Right, absolutely.
30:56
Bruce: Well.
30:57
Bruce: Thanks again for being on the show and all the best to you, Michelle.
31:00
Michelle: Thank you so much.
31:01
Michelle: I loved getting to meet you.
31:03
Bruce: Yeah, thank you.
31:04
Bruce: Bye now, Bye-bye.
31:09
Michelle: Thank you for listening to the Overwhelmed Working Woman podcast.