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Your Brain Doesn't Know the Difference Between Reality and Imagination · That Mom

• Maria Woods: Welcome to That Mom, the podcast where we explore finding more joy and more meaning in the beautiful chaos of motherhood. I'm your host Maria and I'm so glad you're here. Welcome to my next guest. We have Laura Clifton. She wrote a book, came out this year called Prosperous. Laura's based in the UK. And what I love about Laura is she emphasizes that your thoughts are energy. Each of your thoughts is a tiny spark that shapes your life. I love that Laura draws on brain science and belief systems, and she gives the example that your brain doesn't know the difference between your imagination and reality. So you can kind of see your best future. ⁓ as clearly as you can see your worst. So you can kind of choose your adventure. Laura's book is really about reclaiming your power. And that's why I'm so excited to have here her here today ⁓ to join us for a conversation. ⁓ Hello. Thank you. Thanks for having me. What a lovely introduction. Yes. Thank you. I loved we had a chat and we just, like you said, everything flowed and I've learned so much from you. I'd love to hear a little bit about your journey and your background that led you to write this wonderful book. Yeah, lovely. Right. So I've got it here. So this is my book, Prosperous. ⁓ I published in June this year. ⁓ so I never really even planned to write a book, actually. It kind of happened by accident. So ⁓ my kind of awareness or interest in ⁓ spirituality and mindset all began really around. 2020 when we went into the lockdown. So ⁓ we all had lots of more time on our hands and also ⁓ things that might have made us feel worried, anxious, or or fearful of what was going on in the world, ⁓ as well as our own personal battles and challenges and things like that. So I chose to take that time to learn more about how or why we have the thoughts that we do ⁓ and and they make us feel the way that we do. So it all kind of started off with ⁓ the spirituality s side of things, really. So I read a book called The Secret by Rhonda Byrne. It's really popular, I'm sure you've heard of it. ⁓ which sparked my interest in how you create your own reality based on what you think and how you feel. So I watched the there's ⁓ a movie ⁓ that goes with the secret, like a documentary movie. And there are many people on there that talk about the same subject. So I went in to take a deeper dive and had a look at what they talk about and what they get up to. and I kind of started to go along the path of manifestation and energy and and all of this wonderful stuff, which to me, when I was new into it, was fascinating and a wonderful concept to imagine. ⁓ and a really nice way to focus your pathway. So whatever's going on in life around you, if you try and choose the the more optimistic outlook, ⁓ that that how that can improve things. I did have a tendency at times to question all of the things that I was learning. There is an element of woo-woo around a lot of manifestation talk ⁓ and energy and the the neurophysics and everything like that. So I did have times, I think, where I was up and down with regards to how much how much power do I put behind this being real ⁓ and beneficial to my progress with my mindset and therefore my life. So I then found something really interesting about neuroplasticity. And throughout this whole journey, I I had a sheet. of notes on my computer that I added to when I learned something new, something that I wanted to learn more about or wanted to share with others. And I just kept adding the more I learned, the studied and read, I was adding to my sheet and this went on for quite some time. And then I found neuroplasticity. So my sheet evolved even more and I started to add what I was learning about how we can rewire the brain using neural pathways. I quite And I like that because you said, you know, you were kind of questioning or not sure how, you know, you're kind of going up and down in your belief in manifestation. And it sounds like your kind of commitment may come from what you're going to learn about neuroplasticity and kind of brain science, which I think is fascinating because ⁓ I'm sure a lot of people can identify. Manifestation sounds great and sounds well, and we can agree. probably all agree that having a more positive outlook can be beneficial. But I am also really curious, what does the brain science say and and what did you learn about this neuroplasticity? Well, the first thing I learned really was that it grounded me in the sense that I had more faith in the things that I was learning to do and the way that what that I was learning to think. It it made me feel more optimistic about what I was doing, that I was doing the right thing. And And it wasn't just a magical little whimsical thing that I was leaning on. So the neuroscience side of things, I started to learn and I quickly realized that it it really supported all of the spiritual things that I was learning about manifestation. So manifestation is more than just thinking, I wish I had something, and and repeating that. It's so much more than that. ⁓ and the neuroscience really supported that. And the more I learned, the more I started to see that there were different elements of the mind, the brain, and how we are as humans, and how they supported the concepts that people talk about in manifestation. So for me, it made me more faithful and committed to to learn and to continue to practice the daily habits that I put into place. And Then we got to about 2022 and one day I was filling in my notes, ⁓ updating them with something that I was looking into, and I decided to read back from the beginning, and I was absolutely amazed in A the progress that I'd made from 2020. ⁓ and I could really see how how I'd leveled up as I was reading through. And it made me realise how important it is to get this information out to other people, to share it, because it's Some people haven't got the time or the desire to learn or or be completely obsessed with all of this stuff like I have. But I think there are some really simple things that I've learned that I can share that will have such an impact on what people think and therefore how they feel and the life they create. So in 2022, when I was reading through the notes, it was kind of then that I decided that actually I want to share this information. And I started to sort the information into some sort of order. And it was when the first draft of Prosperous was written at that time. And ironically, considering ⁓ some of the stuff that I've written about in the book, I allowed my ego, ⁓ my ⁓ fight or flight mode to talk me out of it because I felt vulnerable. I felt like ⁓ you know, who's gonna wanna read what what I've got to write? And I let that take control of what I did at that stage, which was to file it away. For no one to see. ⁓ and I completely forgot about it. So I haven't even actually told, I think I mentioned it to my sister, just one person at the time. And that was it. I filed it away. And ⁓ my life continued and I continued to do all of this stuff in the background to support my own personal development. ⁓ and and parallel to that, my life was still running. I was still running my beauty business that I I've been doing for nearly 20 years now. And and I at the same time in the lockdowns, I also started on more of an entrepreneurial journey because we'd we'd hit some rocky times with regards to finances, circumstances have changed, and things became a little bit tricky. So I was pleased that I was learning all of the mindset and spiritual things that that I was leaning on to support me through this tricky time. But I've learned a lot about myself through this period because I started some entrepreneurial ventures. ⁓ and there have been many. so I feel like f each one of them has taught me something about myself, something about just taught me lots actually. Each one's taught me lots. So I started to set up a BA company. ⁓ then I went on to Amazon arbitrage, trade in the Forex markets. I've done that for three years, ⁓ went in onto a property journey, I became a partner for ⁓ an energy company to try and ⁓ you know, sell their products. None of which were projects of passion for me. They were more a way to escape the situation that we'd found ourselves in. Little did I know that the things that I was doing on the back burner to keep my mental health and learn about the mind would be the passion project that actually ended up taking off. So I think I was just trying to find a way out of the problems that we were in rather than trying to find what pathway I wanted to. To follow with my life. So in January of 2025, I'd had a particularly tricky weekend with how I was feeling about the circumstances of my life. And it got to the Sunday evening, and I decided that I needed to take back control because my survival mode was in full swing and it was filling me with fear, doubt, worry, which was causing anxious feelings. So I decided to take myself away. put ⁓ a meditation on something to listen to just to quiet the mind and and bring it back. Take back the power if you like. And during that ⁓ meditation that I was a guided meditation that I was listening to, intuition kind of came to me and my book kept coming to mind. The first time since I'd filed it away, I hadn't even thought about it. ⁓ I ended up getting up ⁓ and with my notepad and pen, sitting at my kitchen table, and I had like this big creative surge of I want to do this and I'd like to create supportive material and and you know I want to publish my book and I've got all of these other ideas that I can use to help others to learn and achieve what I have using you know this information. So from January twenty five I just worked really hard and ended up ⁓ so I c I wrote illustrated and typeset my own book. So it was a real solo project. I I did have the support of ⁓ a lovely ⁓ publisher called Joe Gregory. He helped me design the cover but everything else I'd done myself. So I've published that. ⁓ I'm coaching now and I'm in the process of designing and putting together a six month programme that I'm about to launch so that I could work with bigger groups of people in order to To help support more. That's amazing. It's amazing because you were doing all these entrepreneurial things, but you weren't really feeling called to them, it sounds like. And then in a moment of trying to calm your mind and do a meditation, what was really pulling you and your passion that you'd been working on behind the scenes really came to the forefront. And it's a little ironic because as you're working on all these different business and entrepreneurial ideas, the one that takes off is actually the one that you have a lot of passion for and the thing that you would kind of put away, you'd kind of talk yourself out of, it sounds like. Absolutely. And ⁓ I I'm surprised that I missed that, that I did have the passion for it. And and when I was doing any work around ⁓ my book or the well it wasn't a book at the time, but any of that work, I felt propelled to do it. And ⁓ I was obviously then once the pandemic was over and we went back to living ⁓ life again, I reopened the doors to my beauty business and I work with women every single day. ⁓ you know, I've been through traumas with women, deaths, marriages, births, divorces, separations, abuse, all sorts of things that as a beauty therapist, when you're in training, you don't realise that that is gonna encompass a huge part of your role. But it does. So I've worked really closely with women for a long time and I've heard a lot. ⁓ and I never really had the tools to share with people of how to deal with these things, apart from empathy and life, my own life experiences really. But from twenty twenty, when I've learned all of these things that I encompass into my own life, I've had the opportunity of continuing to work with women and to share this stuff. They come for nails, but you know, it's so much more than that because We end up having a coaching session or a a a ⁓ mentoring session and and I quite often explain neuroplasticity and neural pathways using nail files. So ⁓ I have a whole talk around how to, you know, choose the right thoughts and get rid of the bad thoughts using just two nail files. That's amazing. Yeah, and it's so true. ⁓ i your real life experience. Sometimes I think people think Maybe you don't have the right experience to to live your true passion, or you don't have the right experience to put together into something meaningful. And I think here, ⁓ you know, it doesn't have to make sense to the outside world, but your experience dealing with women over a period of time really led you to know that there's a need for other people to have some of these tools. I'd love to jump in and and talk about some of these tools and what. what they kind of look like or what what should people start thinking about? Okay, if you're like, okay, there's some brain science behind this, it's a little bit of spiritual or manifestation. What's kind of where do you start with this if you haven't explored it before? So I would say that the first thing to to note is the awareness. So the awareness of our thoughts and ⁓ what we think affects how we feel. So I used to float around in complete unawareness that I had any control or power over how I felt. I just thought that I've woken up today, I'm having a bad day, I will just deal with it. But that isn't the case. So we get to choose our thoughts with the right information and knowing. I I found it so supportive and encouraging to know how and why we have repetitive thoughts and the feelings that they create. Because it highlights the importance of the awareness of what we're thinking. So we can control what we f how we feel by controlling what we think. So if you wake up and and you're having a bad day, that's because we have allowed one thought to ⁓ what happens is we build up momentum. And and my daughter actually did did do this the other day and I could see it happening right in front of my eyes. So she had had a little bit of ⁓ she she wasn't feeling great about the Halloween costume that she'd picked for a party she was going to. So rather than just go, well, maybe I should ⁓ try and find some different accessories or try and find a different outfit or start start my plan again, she let that negative feeling, she she kept adding on to it and she w she started talking about ⁓ driving lessons and things that were going wrong here and things that were going wrong here. So I said to her, darling, what you're doing is you're building on that negative thought. You're building it, you're giving it tower and and it's creating momentum. So it's just starting to make you feel really bad. And we've even gone beyond the initial ⁓ problem now, which was the fancy dress costume. Yeah. And I think I mean I can relate to if something goes wrong, sometimes you're like, Nothing goes wrong, no one appreciates me. You know, it kind of boils over into that. thinking and I think that's what you're talking about, where you're letting other problems pile on and you're letting momentum come with, you know, what started as one negative thought. Absolutely. So if we think about the energy side of things where like attracts like, we'll have a negative thought and it will attract another negative thought and another another negative thought. And before we know it, a small snowballed thought has has grown and grown and grown. And we're starting to feel really, really, you know not good and no wonder we're having a bad day. ⁓ so I w I was guilty of that in the past and and I think knowing that small bit of information is huge because when you start to become aware and and I did try and say to my daughter the other day, I'm I'm being your awareness here, I'm telling you that what you're doing is you're just get building up momentum of bad thoughts. You need to break the cycle. You're in a loop of doom as I like to call it. So you need to interrupt that. you need to interrupt it, stop it, which we have all got the power to do, and then replace it with something that's a much nicer thought. Now, this is neuroplasticity. That's ⁓ that's the magic of it. So what we focus on grows. So if if she continues to she's got a neural pathway in her mind that she's focusing on about this, ⁓ you know, a bad day she's having and and no good fancy dress costume. I would love this though. This because I I think people wanna know if you're having a bad day or you notice, like you said, the step one is awareness. So I think, okay, next time I'm mad about something, something upsets me. It it it doesn't go right. And then I start piling on, and I'm not gonna have time to do this and no one's showing me appreciation. And then I at least Now you can have the awareness to say, this is happening. I'm giving momentum to the negativity and the negative thoughts. ⁓ what else can I do once I am aware that this is happening? So ⁓ now everything with the brain, neuropla neuroplasticity, everything in the mind but is based on repetition. So repetition is key with everything. So I used to be in a loop of doom where I might have a negative thought and I would repeat that because I wasn't aware, I wasn't stuck in it. So I was repeating the negative thought and again and again and I was really strengthening that neural pathway. So what we need to do is we need to replace the neural pathway with a more positive and supportive neural pathway. Now I would the best time to do that isn't when you're in a state of, ⁓ I'm having a bad day, all of these things are going wrong. So we need to do some preparation before that. in the way of placing more positive, more supportive neural pathways in place so that they are there and they are readily available for us to step into when we start to fall down that negative trap of momentum. So ⁓ things like ⁓ this is massive for me and I think this is this is so supportive on a neuroscience level and on a spiritual side. So daily journaling, it sounds like it would not have as much power as it has, but it completely has. And I have learned ⁓ about myself that journaling in the morning is really supportive for the rest of the day. although we can journal whenever. But what we're doing by journaling is we are doing it in a certain way. And I don't mean just sitting down and outpouring all of your negative thoughts and feelings. It's fine to do that, but we we also need to build a positive ⁓ mind space. So ⁓ daily little habits, like ⁓ hygiene-wise, if we were brushing our teeth every day, we keep ⁓ you know, positive dental health. And it's exactly the same with the mind. So if we do daily little habit of journaling, we can create positive neural pathways that support us. Daily as we are journaling, we're building strength to them neural pathways so that they're there when we have a tricky time and we can Step one, find our awareness, realize that we're having the negative thought. Step two, we need to quiet the mind, which is easier said than done when you are feeling stressed or anxious or fearful. So again, that is something that we can practice and build up the strength behind so that when we are in a tricky situation, we've got the strength to quiet the mind and bring the mind back in. ⁓ and then to replace the the negative thought that we just had. with something much more positive and supportive to to how we're thinking at that time. It sounds like ⁓ so we're journaling maybe daily, maybe in the morning, and we're journaling something positive. And that positivity allows us to kind of have those neuropathways available so that when we're stuck in a negative track. It's then at a different time, it's easier for us to jump over to these more positive neuropathways because we've created them through a practice like journaling. Is that right? Absolutely. So we've created them and we strength we've strengthened them. So there ⁓ if you were to put a little bit of structure behind your daily journaling session, there are three things that I'd suggest. So if you start with ⁓ I start, this is what I do. So I start with three gratitudes. I'm so happy and grateful for. Because. So what that is doing is ⁓ we've got something in our minds called the reticular activation system. The RAS, though, let's call it the RAS, it's so much easier. So what the RAS does, if we were to imagine, just to imagine that our subconscious mind is a small ⁓ a small mind, and our conscious mind is ⁓ sub- sorry, our subconscious is the big ⁓ and our conscious mind is the small mind, the Ras sits between the two. So if we ⁓ what we focus on in our conscious mind, the RAS behaves as a filter and it pulls through information from our subconscious mind that we wouldn't otherwise see. So I've got an example around this. My mother-in-law got a new car and she came around to show us the new car, and me and my son went out and we sat in it and we played with the devices in there, and for about three days later, my son said to me. Ever since Wednesday, Mum, all I've seen are white voxel mockers like Nanny's new car. And I said, Well, it's exactly the same for me because that's all I had seen. I'd never s I didn't even know what that car was before she came around with it. So that's how the RAS works. Because we focused on it in our conscious mind. The the voxel mockers were there all the time before, but because our subconscious mind didn't know we wanted to see them, it didn't show. So that's the same with positive thoughts. So we're having positive thoughts. We're we're saying what we're grateful for. We're saying because why. And just that practice of thinking of these positive things allows us later to recognize positive things as they happen. So instead of the car driving by, it's positive things are driving by our subconscious mind, but now we're noticing them because we've kind of tuned to a more positive, we're looking for them. Absolutely. So the prefrontal cortex, which is the part of our brain where all of the creativity, productivity, imagination, all of the wonderful things come from. So that is a a brilliant part of the the journaling process. A lot of people talk about journaling and gratitude journaling, ⁓ specifically. And I think I mean, I like doing it and it kind of makes me happy. And but to know that there's brain science behind it, that this is actually allowing me in a moment of ⁓ frustration or when I'm getting into negativity to step out of that into a more positive headspace. I mean, I think that's just a huge takeaway. and is much more powerful than just, you know, saying you should appreciate things, you know, or you should be grateful, right? It's like, well, why? Why is spending time thinking about what you're grateful for? How is that going to improve your daily life? I think if we can more easily step out of these negative moments, that is a huge reason to embrace gratitude journaling. Absolutely. And I think as well, it it makes them less likely for us to slip into because we are telling our RAS, the filter, that we want to see more things that light us up, that are going well for us at the moment, that are already positives in our lives. So some of the negative things that we might have noticed before. We won't that won't get filtered through to us because we're not we're not focusing on that. We're focusing on things that support our journey, things that light us up and make us feel happy. So that is a massive benefit of so you're telling the RAS ⁓ that's what you want to see. ⁓ and and the second part of journaling, intention setting. So set your intentions for the day. Or or if you're going into like an important meeting or or you're gonna make an important call before that meeting or call, sit for a moment, just Breathe and think about how you want it to go. Assume that it's gonna go well. Imagine that, you know, you you get a deep connection with the person or you make a sale or you know, imagine it going in your favour because what you're then doing is you're telling the same filter that that's what you want to happen. So you're setting your intentions for how you'd like things to happen, and it's so important and it really does support what we're doing. So ⁓ that's part two of the daily journaling. ⁓ and part three is ⁓ so there's quite a lot of controversy at times about affirmations. Now people are like, you know, it's just a waste of time. You're just repeating a sentence over and over again. Which can be the case if you're not putting any feeling or emotion behind it. So what we need to do as step three on our daily journaling is choose an affirmation that supports what we're trying to do or to achieve at that time or on that day. So If I was gonna have a day that I was working and I wanted to be productive and really focus on what I was doing, I might create an affirmation during my journaling that today I intend to focus, I'd like clarity in order to be as productive as I can on this day. So I could write that a few times down in my journal, but as I'm relaxing, as I'm focusing on breathing and feeling how that would make me feel. So feel a sense of achievement, feel the clarity. ⁓ and feel the gratitude for the produ productive time that you've had that day before you do it. Because you're you're just telling your brain how you want things to go. ⁓ and that is such a powerful, powerful ⁓ way to start your day and has massive impact on how your day goes and how you perform. That's amazing. So can we circle back to the intentions and By setting intention, you gave the example of imagining that a meeting or an important call goes really well. ⁓ So is that what we're doing? Are we picking out the things that are happening during the day and just imagining them going how we want? Is that how we set intentions? Yes. Yeah, exactly. So you could set intentions for the next half an hour. So say for example, you you're going on on a call, you could say, you know, I want this call to go this I intend for it to go this way. Or in the morning you can set your intention for today. Today I intend to be more grounded and connected while I'm having family time to make that time ⁓ special and like bonding. So you're telling your bra so I could get up on a Sunday morning with the intention of spending the day with my family. I want to be more connected. I want to be present ⁓ of mind and body to enjoy that time with them. I don't want to be setting intentions that day that I want to be focused on productivity and clarity because that's not what I'm doing. So ⁓ you're kind of setting the foundations, telling your brain what you want it to do for you that day. We've got such a powerhouse of a machine going on up here. So ⁓ if we tell it what we expect, tell it what we intend and tell it what we desire, it's there to support us in doing that. I love that. ⁓ and I've been doing a little bit of this myself so recently, but in telling, In saying that I intend to have like, let's say, a connected day with my my kids, for example, or my husband, and we're telling our brain that's what we want. ⁓ is there evidence that that like how does that work with the brain science? Does ⁓ why is the brain more likely to to have that come true for us that day if we've set that intention or if we've imagined it already? Our subconscious mind is in control of of a majority of things that we do. Our conscious mind is is a s very small part of our mind, and it's the only one that we can consciously input things into. So we are by by focusing on today, I want to feel grounded and present and spend time with my family. What we're doing is we're telling the filter to ask the ⁓ the subconscious mind to support us with that. So In a way, we're we're asking the subconscious mind not to start throwing work things our way, not to start reminding us about calls that we've got on Monday or Tuesday. We're really asking the subconscious mind to remind us that we want to have a day that we connect with our families, and that's where our focus is. I can see how that works because just as you start seeing the car, once you're aware of the car, ⁓ in this example. you re just remember that you set the intention to be more present with your kids. So as things come up, it's just like a little reminder, ⁓ no, I set the intention that I want to be present. And so it probably makes it a bit easier to put down the phone or stop checking the email or whatever it is that would distract you from what you intended to do. Exactly. So like the the brain is like an evidence finding machine. it it it wants to prove us it wants to prove right all the time. So if we were to say today I want to focus on ⁓ having a productive day and getting a lot of work done, it will try and support us with that. So it might highlight things that, you know, you need to check your emails or, you know, a and you'll you'll feel inclined to do something like that. If you're setting an intention to spend the day with your family, you're telling your subconscious mind that that's what you want more evidence to support. your y to support maybe maybe it's like then it's ⁓ coming up with ideas of things you could do with your f your family, right? That would make you feel connected or absolutely that. And and maybe, you know, suggest it cre creating more focus on your children and and things that you can do together that that y you'll enjoy doing and make that day successful related to your intentions in the morning. Yeah. Okay, great. So that's our morning journaling. We're doing the gratitude, we're setting our intentions, and then we're setting affirmations that are appropriate to what we actually want to do for that day. ⁓ and trying to feel the emotion and the gratitude connected to those affirmations. Absolutely. The feelings are key there when we're talking about the affirmations. ⁓ and and they don't have to be, you don't have to have a daily affirmation. You could have kind of a mantra that's supporting you through a certain period of time. So You know, if you've got something going on in your life, you could just have the same affirmation or mantra for that period of time. It doesn't have to be different. Like I said earlier on, repetition is key with the mind. So you know, it is flexible. You can shoot just go with the flow, see how you feel. ⁓ kind of What does a messy start mean? Well, I'm not sure that a messy start is the best way to describe it, but this is how I right. So So if you've got something that you would like to do, a desire of something that you would like to achieve, it's very rare that we know so if we imagine a staircase and we're at the bottom of the staircase and our goal is up here, we don't know what step 75 might look like when we're at the beginning, but we don't need to know. So I used to be massively guilty of this. I can't start doing this because I don't know how I'm gonna get to my end goal. Yeah, I'm a little guilty of this. Yes, the and the realisation is that actually you can start anything you want. You don't know you don't need to know what the end looks like or even the steps to get you to the end. You don't need to know what that looks like at the beginning. And that's really empowering because what I've kind of learned as I've gone along is you learn as you go. So if we start off at step one and our goal is at step one hundred. We don't know what step fifty looks like. We might not know until we get to step forty what that looks like. It doesn't mean we shouldn't start though. We should because as you you develop on your pathway, the pathway becomes clear and opens up. So it becomes clear and evident what you need to do to get to step 100, but that might not happen until you're getting nearer. and that's ⁓ perfectly natural, I think, because there are things that you learn on your journey that you wouldn't necessarily know right at the beginning. So the important thing is to just make that messy start and learn as you go, and the pathway will open up. And what you need to do to achieve your goal will become evident as you go. So I never intended to write a book. I never intended to to do any of the things that I'm doing now. it just kind of happened like that. ⁓ and one of the really big things for me actually, ⁓ w when we were back in twenty twenty and I started all of the mindful things, I completely came off of all social media. I found that it just gave it it just gave me a sense of peace and I never intended to go back to it. In this day and age, it's kind of a necessary evil. I don't know if that's the right word, but it's necessary to do what we do, like podcasts and things, you know, it's you to To get yourself, your message, your desire to how you can help people out there, you need to have a platform to do that. So I came back to social media and I was well aware that I needed to be putting myself in a position that at that time made me feel vulnerable. So it was back in April, and I'd created my first video talking reel of me explaining something. It was actually about the Raz, actually. ⁓ and my mother in law came round on the Friday night. So I said to her, ⁓ I was so pleased with myself. I said to her, I've got my first video real ready. I've written the caption and it is all ready to post in the morning. So she went, Why are you posting it in the morning? Why aren't you just posting it now? And I was procrastinating about it for you know, for for all of them reasons, I think, because I felt a bit anxious about it. I I felt like I was gonna be vulnerable and I was worried about being judged. So sh I said, actually you're quite right. I'm gonna ⁓ so I just went for it and I posted it on the Friday night. and here we are now in October, so quite a few months later, I've done multiple ⁓ posts and podcasts and you know, things that back in April I wouldn't have felt comfortable doing. But I just made that messy start. I didn't know what I was doing on social media. I still don't know. I still don't know, but I still do it. ⁓ and ideas come up for content and things that I thought that, you know, I I would never be doing. ⁓ and here I am doing them and you know, I've got nearly four thousand followers on f on Facebook now and I just really don't know how that happened, but it's all wonderful. But only because I made that messy start back in April, I just went for it and you know, the the other things just come up as you go, your pathway becomes clear. I think that's wonderful. I think it's such an important message and it sounds so simple, but I know I've been guilty of where I think, ⁓ I could start something or I could build something, ⁓ I could do something, but I'm not really sure like how does this make sense or how does it make money or how do I get all the way there? I don't know people or I don't have all the skills or all the knowledge. So it's easy to say, well, forget about that, right? Because it doesn't necessarily make sense. Whereas here I think if you really have the passion for it, like your book, for example, you had all this passion and all of a sudden it came to you, let's write a book. But it sounds like you didn't know how to write a book. You hadn't written a book before. You didn't have a bunch of publishers, you know, as best friends. So you really, I'm sure, and the start, you made this decision in the moment, I'm going to write a book. How? I I don't think you knew how, right? You had all this great material. And I'm sure as you started getting down your notes and thinking about who do I reach out to, more and more steps became clear, whether they're clear, ⁓ I'm not gonna get my book published through this publisher. They're not writing back or someone else responded or whatever it is, your path becomes clear as you put more more into it and as you go through additional steps, but you just can't know that at the onset. No, you definitely can't. And do you know what? ⁓ it was it it still amazes me now how this actually happened, right? So my friend, ⁓ she's a really close friend of mine, learned, we'd been friends for years and years. I hadn't even mentioned it to her that I was doing this book. And about two weeks after I'd took taken my book out of the archives, she was here and we were talking and I said to her, you know, I dropped the bombshell, I've written a book and I just couldn't wait to see what she she said about it. So I told her all about it and she went, ⁓ I'd done a sailing course. with a publisher a few years ago, a really nice guy. She told me his name. ⁓ and after she left, I I had well, because I'd already unearthed my book out of the archives and I'd been working on it for that two weeks, I thought, well, I'm just gonna message him. I'm just gonna go for it. So I didn't give my the fear feared parts of my mind time to ⁓ to stop me. I just went for it, made a messy start, messaged Joe. And I just downloaded all of my ideas. I said, I've written a book, I haven't published yet. This is what I want to do to support the people on that choose to take that journey. Called it all out to him. ⁓ and and I'm still working with Joe now, and he's absolutely awesome. But I'd been friends with Lou all that time. Didn't even know that she'd met a publisher or knew a publisher, but I'd set that intention to get, let's get my book out there. I'm gonna start talking about it. And it was like the universe just kind of put that situation. ⁓ that circumstance or that person in my path at that time that I needed him. And it just amazes me. It just amazes me how these things fall into place just when you least expect it. Yeah. That's that's amazing. And just by talking about your book and taking that step to share with a friend, it resulted in something that was really made the book happen for you. Yeah, it opened up the pathway for me. It gave me clarity and and Joe's given me direction and massive amounts of support. So if I hadn't have taken that book out the archives in January and started working on it and started talking about it, them steps wouldn't have opened up and become clear to me. But because I had started, it it opened up the pathway. And it's a it's a prime example actually of what we've been talking about. Yeah, that's amazing. I like that we walk through the journal and just exactly what people can do to get their day off to a great start, to be a little more positive. ⁓ what are the other key takeaways? If people want to dive in more and read Prosperous, your book, which I know is available on Amazon and we can link it below. ⁓ what else will they find in the book that will be really empowering for them? ⁓ so two of the huge ⁓ takeaways for me, ⁓ with all of this stuff that I've learned is overwhelm and worry. Now, as a mum and ⁓ somebody with their own business and ⁓ partner, and in these challenging times that that we live in now, I mean, these things that are going on in the world could be completely consuming for some of us if we allowed that to happen. what I've kind of learned is worry is our brain's way of trying to protect us. It's a survival mechanism. Worry and overwhelm, they and and fear and doubt and worry, they all stop us in our tracks. Our brain is doing that to us to try and protect us. So it's not necessarily trying to be our enemy or or ⁓ make us feel it doesn't mind if we're unhappy, it just minds if we are safe. So learning that, that little bit of information is so powerful because it makes you realize that when your mind throws up thoughts like, Who do you think you are to write a book? No one's gonna want to read what you've written. All of them negative inputs are from our survival mode. They're trying to keep us safe. They are actually trying to self-sabotage us and stop us what we are doing. Because, like I said earlier, the brain is an evidence finding machine. I didn't have any any evidence in my mind that I would be safe to write a book. So my brain ought me to do that because it's trying to protect me. And and it's a very old ⁓ survival. So, you know, many, many years ago, we used to have to hunt and gather for our own survival to to eat. So that that was tricky, and we had to have survival mechanisms in place so that we didn't get eaten by bears or or other predators. ⁓ in today's world, it's not such ⁓ it's not such a life-threatening ⁓ thing that might scare us. You know, it could be gonna publish a book, exactly. And that would your brain is kind of looking at that threat the same way as a bear attack, right? Versus Yeah. So your brain's trying to keep you safe from something, not realizing that the consequences aren't life and death. But we feel the overwhelm and we feel the fear and we feel the self doubt. Now when we know that the fear and the doubt and worry is self sabotage is being placed there to try and protect us. You can understand why it's happening and and it helps you to put them thoughts into perspective really and go, Well, you know, I'm not gonna die from publishing a book. and because the mind doesn't ⁓ doesn't seem to care that, you know, it's it might help me to be happier in life, it might help me to progress, it might help help me to help others, it might Lots of wonderful things, but it doesn't choose to tell us that because that will spur us on. And the brain hasn't got any evidence it'll be okay. This is another massive benefit of journaling because when we tell our minds something, or if we imagine something, so if I was to imagine I've written a book, it's become a bestseller and and all of these things during my journaling, before I've written the book, in theory, my mind doesn't know if that's a memory or ⁓ it doesn't know the difference between an imagined situation and a memory. So the more and more I think about I've got a best-selling book, it's successful, people love it, I'm my mind begins to believe that I'm gonna be safe doing that because it thinks that I've already done it. So if we journal on things that we would like to achieve, i.e., goals that we've had, goals that we've got, ⁓ if we wanted to start a business, for example, and we were getting fear, doubt, and worry thrown in our path to self-sabotage us, it would be really helpful to journal around ⁓ talking about the business as if it's already done. So I have set up a wonderfully successful business. I've got a great team of people that work with me, and we've got some fantastic clients on board already. fluff it up, elaborate on it, make it ⁓ full of emotion, add in as many senses. It's called visualization. So we add in as many senses as we can. What can we see, smell, taste here when we're in this situation? Our brain believes that it's something that we have done in the past. So we stop ⁓ we're not self-sabotaged as much because the brain isn't as scared. It doesn't put us into ⁓ survival mode. So it allows us to achieve more, push forward without trying to self-sabotage us as much. Yeah. That's amazing. Cause I know I've also heard about visualization and how it can be powerful. But again, this really explains why that it's creating kind of a safe space for our brain and imagining us there at the end of some goal or having done something actually may help us get there. ⁓ plus it sounds like a lot of fun, right? To just imagine. you know, if it you want to build a business or if you want to be more connected with your kids or your family or you wanna be less busy and less overwhelmed, just kind of visualizing that and imagining that actually sounds like a lot of fun because you're imagining the things that you want to come true. Absolutely. And and and I I was saying this to one of my clients the other day, journaling, visualization, meditation, all of these things that ⁓ contribute to our daily habits and ⁓ strengthen our minds. shouldn't be seen as a chore or something that we have to do, ⁓ I've got to do my meditation or I've got to do my journaling. But like you say, they are things that should light us up. We're imagining our best lives, our best selves. And who wouldn't want to do that? You know, we could sit and ⁓ we could sit and get overwhelmed and allow the negative loop of doom momentum to build up, like we were talking about earlier. We could sit and imagine all of things going wrong and how bad things would be. But we could also imagine the success, things going well, you know, and and completely fit that. It is such a powerful thing, both s energy wise and neuroscience wise. So we are what we attract. So if we're imagining success, happiness and abundance, we can achieve success, happiness and abundance. Yeah, what a great message. And I know journaling is such a key part of this. Can you give us some practical guidance on journaling? How long do we have to journal for? I know you mentioned you prefer the morning. Does it have to be the morning? ⁓ you know, again, I'm trying to think about moms in particular that might have hectic mornings, that might not have, you know, an hour and a half to sit down and dedicate. How do we fit this in and like from a practical perspective? Absolutely. And and this is something that I come ⁓ I come up against all the time because people quite often say, I haven't got time. So I haven't got time. ⁓ you wouldn't say I haven't got time to have a shower today, or I haven't got time to brush my teeth today. ⁓ and in actual fact, if we spent time dedicated to our daily habits, we would achieve more in the time that we're not doing our daily habits because we're priming our mind for a resilience for productivity to support us in what we're doing that day. So in actual fact, yes, I know it's different when you've got kids, but what the point is if you can put this time aside anytime, it doesn't matter when, that will be beneficial to how you perform, ⁓ how you're present with your children, your family at work, because you your mind's primed for it. It's gonna be a you know, you're making your life experience better. ⁓ it doesn't matter what time of day, you can do it once or twice a day if you like and you so desire. And ⁓ for how long it doesn't really as long as you're doing it. So I I too haven't got an hour and a half to sit and journal. ⁓ but I try and squeeze it in in the morning. And if I don't get it done in the morning, that's fine too. It it doesn't matter. It needs to be flexible and it needs to fit into your life so that you do it, so that you don't dread it and so it doesn't become a chore. So I would normally journal in the morning ⁓ But five or ten minutes works. If you've got a little bit longer and you can do half an hour, just mix it up. Work with the time that you've got. So I have actually created a ⁓ if you use Chat GPT, I've created a GPT. It's called ⁓ Prosperous Journaling Buddy. And it actually is ⁓ a a g ⁓ a guided journaling assistant. So you you click into it and I'm happy to share it with you and and again you can put a link for for people to use that if you'd like to one of the it greets you welcomes you there kind of in my voice ⁓ and and I've built it with all of the material in my book and in my the journaling guide that I've created. I've loaded it all up in there and it guides you through each journaling session. So it'll welcome you and it'll give you a tip on well done for showing up for yourself today. This is gonna build And it will tell something about how it'll build ⁓ a more positive state of mind. ⁓ and then it asks you how long you've got for that day, how long have you got to journal today? and you get three options: five to ten minutes, I think it's 15 to 20 minutes, and then 25 to 30. So you press one, two, or three, and then it will guide you through a little journaling session, starting off with the three gratitudes, then going on to whatever the topic is for that day. So it might you know, if it doesn't align to what you're doing that day and you want it to be more refined to to refine your intentions around what you're doing, you can just tap in there. This is what I'm doing today, so it can refine it for you. ⁓ That's amazing. And it finishes off with an affirmation. So it it just ⁓ it kind of gives you that little nudge to to do it without having to worry, Am I doing it wrong? You know, 'cause you can't journal well. You just can't you can't do your daily habits wrong. As long as you put a little bit of time in. you can do it. Writing as well is better. The actual art of scribing ⁓ has more creates more of ⁓ a a stronger connection in the mind because you know, you you're actually physically writing it down. You will have the option though to journal within the the buddy if you you can't write that day or because you're still doing it then. You're still having the right thoughts around it. So yeah, I'll share that and that might support ⁓ some others with how to to slot that into their day. What an amazing tool. Thank you for sharing that with us. I appreciate it. And Laura, where can people find you? We're gonna link the book that can be found on Amazon. Where can they find you if they want to connect ⁓ online ⁓ or to look into your other coaching programs? ⁓ well what if I provide the link with you that you can pop below the video. Absolutely. On Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn ⁓ and TikTok. ⁓ any of them. ⁓ and there's all of the information in the link tree that I'll share with you. So ⁓ I and I'd also be more than happy to share ⁓ the ebook of Prosperous. So I'll pop the link in for that as well. Amazing. Thank you so much, Laura. I appreciate your time and I think I've learned a lot about the power of journaling and the power of creating your own prosperous life. ⁓ thanks for having me. I've really enjoyed speaking to you. Thank you. This is Maria and you've been listening to That Mom. Thank you for being here. If this episode resonated, share it with a mom who needs it too. And if you're ready for more, your next episode is waiting. Because every conversation here is meant to empower you to live better.