My client Joan and I talk about her experience in one on one coaching, using the tools of thought work, somatic skills, and the benefit of a gentle neuroplasticity approach. Note, what I didn't make clear in the episode is that when I was coaching Joan on her pain, she was also pursuing medical attention for her issue. Our work helped her dial down the fear + anxiety and redirect her mind so that the pain was not at the forefront of her mind or not experienced at all. She went to her Dr. to explore treatment for the root cause.
Enjoy a delightful chatty conversation between myself and Joan and I think maybe you will find her saying things that you've said to yourself or thought that my problems aren't big enough to work through or bring to coaching. What's the point if we're not working on giant things. But as Joan says, coaching is about having someone to help you read the label when you're inside the jar.
She speaks about her original skeptism of coaching, the same kind that I had. How we came to the practice of self coaching through Kara Lowentheil's podcast Unf*ck Your Brain and her coaching community The Clutch (now The Feminist Self-Help Society).
Find out about Kara's work here -
Website
https://schoolofnewfeministthought.com/
Podcast
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/unf-ck-your-brain/id1229434818
I forgot to mention on the podcast that I'm certified as a Feminist Coach in Kara's advanced coaching certification which helps bring the lens of socialization insdie the coaching container. We understand our thoughts are not just ours, born entirely of our own making. No we've learned them from a patriarchal society that has deeply sexist embedded ideas of who women are.
Which is why the coaching we did on Joan's hair wasn't just about hair, it was about agency, ageism, and saying f.u. to the Patriarchy's opinions about what's right for women to choose around their hair and what they buy and their appearance in general.
If you are craving a coaching container that's not just about SMART goals and getting stuff done but how we can pair action and deprogramming unhelpful subconscious beliefs, let's chat!
I've got spaces available for individual clients working one on one. I'm looking forward to connecing with you!
[00:00:00] Welcome to the curiosity cure podcast. I'm your host, Deb Malkin, master certified life coach, body worker, hypnotist trained in pain reprocessing by the pain psychology center, queer elder, fat human on planet earth here to help you evoke the power of simple neuroplasticity techniques rooted in shame free curiosity.
[00:00:29] So you can feel more better. more of the time in the body you have today and build the rich, full life that you want to live. A quick disclaimer, this podcast is not a replacement for medical care. I am here to provide insights and techniques that can compliment your healthcare journey, but always consult with your healthcare provider for personalized advice.
[00:00:58] Deb: Thank you so much again for saying yes to being on the podcast, my goal in this conversation is to cover a few things. One, just kind of talk about coaching in general, not specifically coaching with me, but like coaching, why, why do you like it? What's helpful about it? What do you want people to know about coaching? Um, and then kind of like, I don't know.
[00:01:25] Your process of deciding to work with me, how we work together what benefits you have found, um, and then, you know, and it'll be a conversation. It's not a monologue. So you can just riff and I might follow a thread to places, but I kind of want this to feel a little bit like what our sections feel like, you know, kind of casual and friendly, full of love.
[00:01:52] Joan: I love it so much, I went back through my journal from this year and took some notes about our sessions together. So.
[00:02:01] Deb: Oh, my God, that's I'm so excited. Who are you? What do you want people to know? It doesn't have to be, I live here and I work here and this is so it can be really anything.
[00:02:13] Thank you
[00:02:14] Joan: I'm Joan and I am a professional person like with a regular 9 to 5. I'm also a musician and a mom and a spouse. So I've got a lot of material to work with.
[00:02:33] And I really think of myself as someone who, um, is trying to maximize my time here on this, on this earth and have a lot of fun and joy in my life and make the most out of it. So that's. That's
[00:02:50] Deb: who I am. That's amazing. Did you say musician? I don't remember. Yes. Yes,
[00:02:56] Joan: I said musician. And I'm a musician in very many ways.
[00:03:02] I am a gigging musician. But I'm also a house concert host. And I have hosted nearly 50 concerts. Uh, concerts for traveling musicians in my home. So that's a big part of my, of my life too. Um, and I'm a venue manager for a festival. And, um, so I, I interact with music in a lot of different ways. Um, and, and talking about coaching and how I came to coaching, that was actually part of it for me.
[00:03:35] I think when I first heard about coaching, it was the same, I had kind of the same view that my bestie does. Um, like, Oh my gosh, that's so ridiculous. Like who needs someone to tell them how to live their life? And like it was. I don't know, like somebody telling you what to do all the time.
[00:03:54] Right. Um, and so that was kind of a turnoff for me, but I also have found myself, you know, having gone through counseling. And just different self explorations over time that I really do value growth and counseling wasn't really the kind of growth I wanted to make at this point in my life.
[00:04:18] I didn't say earlier, I'm 46 years old, so I maybe got into coaching when I was 43,
[00:04:26] Deb: 44. Okay. Amazing. So what was your kind of gateway into coaching?
[00:04:32] Joan: I started listening to the Un Fuck Your Brain podcast. Um, and I loved it so much. And I, the part of it that I was hesitant about was the whole coaching part.
[00:04:44] I was like, I love this podcast, but like, I still think coaching is weird. And, um,
[00:04:51] Deb: Oh my God. Same. Also. Yes. So Cara Lowenthal, who hosts is the creator of Un Fuck Your Brain, um, also is my kind of gateway drug into coaching. And I had this similar experiences of like, Oh my God, this podcast is amazing. What she's saying is super helpful.
[00:05:10] It gave me a new framework to like, think about things that are happening in my life, but I, I don't really know about this coaching thing. Seems weird. Right? Right.
[00:05:20] Joan: Right. Yeah. But I recently had a coworker tell me the coolest quote I've always. all know this quote of, um, not being able to see the forest for the trees.
[00:05:34] But what she says is it's hard to read the label from inside the jar.
[00:05:40] Deb: Ooh.
[00:05:41] Joan: To me, that makes so much sense. And that's kind of where coaching comes in. So I encountered you and your amazingness, Deb Malkin, um, in, um, in, in the clutch, which is Carl's coaching community. And what I found about coaching is that it's not about someone telling you what to do.
[00:06:05] It's about someone helping you read the label when you're inside the jar.
[00:06:11] Deb: My God, that's the best analogy of coaching that I have ever heard.
[00:06:18] Joan: It's so hard when you're in there and you're telling yourself all of these tales and you're believing them to. Stop and take account of the fact that maybe what you're telling yourself isn't actually true.
[00:06:40] Deb: Yeah. Yeah. I love the like that feeling like I know what the feeling is of being inside the jar. Right. And almost like not even knowing. That that's where you are is inside the jar and just inside
[00:06:57] Joan: the jar. Yeah. And really, I was starting to say that like my musical journey brought me to coaching and a big part of that was that I have always been a musician, but I've always struggled really, really badly with stage fright.
[00:07:13] And I wanted to be able to get past that. And so when I was in the clutch, I made this goal for myself to play in front of people 25 times and I literally started playing behind a bush in a public park.
[00:07:33] Deb: That's incredible. Wow. What bravery, it's the bravery of recognizing you have this deep desire that you want to meet and, there's the perfectionist fantasy. And that's a, that's a phrase that we've learned from Kara, right? The perfectionist fantasy is that someday you'll just wake up and go and perform.
[00:07:55] But the reality is your body, your nervous system, like to overcome that really starts with playing behind a bush in a public park. So what happened after that? Well,
[00:08:09] Joan: I kept kind of moving further out into the park and then open mics and then, I had a gig by myself and all this whole time I'm doing coaching and particularly self coaching where I'm writing down everything that I'm thinking and I'm identifying places where, and really writing down everything you're thinking is like.
[00:08:37] Writing down the ingredients on the label of the outside of the jar. Right? Like what are the ingredients in Joan's brain today? So I would like, look at what, what ingredients were going on and then try to practice thoughts. Like, I mean, I seriously started with, I will not die from playing in front of other people. Like that's where I was.
[00:09:00] Deb: Okay. I would love to contextualize this a little bit because I, yes, I don't know that I've ever talked about the thought work model yet on the podcast. So I love that. You talk about that thought. I will not die playing in front of people, because in this coaching model, what we would call an intentional thought, right?
[00:09:24] A thought that you're going to practice and then the rest of the model, right? Model is broken up into circumstance, thought, feeling, action and result. So that we can start to see how the experience of playing your music in front of people is not just the circumstances, not just the unintentional thought that you're thinking, right? That subconscious belief that I might die if I play in front of people. Right? And then after having that thought, there would be a feeling that arises and that feeling probably sounds like fear.
[00:10:02] Right? So then the, what thought work helps us do is choose thoughts. To practice on purpose, which then we'll elicit, you know, elicit a different feeling and a different set of actions. And then we would get a different result or return based on this. And so what I love about it is, it's a very elegant framework for being able to just create a new pathway, create these new neural pathways, right? And, and also create a process of self inquiry. That isn't just my teenage diary of I hate this person. This thing happened to me. I'm so ugly, right? There's something about that journaling process when you're young, where you're like, every thought I ever write is a total fact.
[00:10:49] Yes, and it's all true that we try to graduate from that process to like, the adult version process. And it's like, very hard without this new framework to kind of get there. So I love ThoughtWork as this new framework that really loosens our attachment to these thoughts as facts. So. I think that is as much context as I want to give because I want this to make sense for people because this is kind of where you and I found each other.
[00:11:21] I think it's kind of part of our conversation. So it's part of our shorthand in some of our sessions and really fun. To explain that for people because otherwise people would be like, I have no idea what you're I have no idea. Yeah.
[00:11:38] Joan: And you should know because it's so helpful.
[00:11:41] Deb: 100%. So I let so you chose this thought, tell me a little bit about that.
[00:11:47] Joan: This reaches back to our roots of getting to know each other, but kind of choosing a thought that wasn't like, I am going to be the next, I don't know, Taylor Swift or whatever, but instead choosing something that I could believe. Um, like I know, literally, I know I'm not going to die.
[00:12:05] I've played in front of people before, but like just practicing that thought and then making that thought a reality of not dying, um,
[00:12:14] Deb: it's so helpful also in some ways if that thought were really true, well then like. Okay, well then the problem is solved because you're dead. Then
[00:12:24] Joan: I would be dead.
[00:12:25] Yeah. And then I graduated to things like I can have performance anxiety and play at the same time.
[00:12:35] Deb: Okay, tell me more about that. When you thought, do you remember like the feeling and the action that came with that thought that you were practicing? Um,
[00:12:48] Joan: yeah, that one was hard to move to because I really had convinced myself that I couldn't.
[00:12:54] have performance anxiety and perform at the same time. Um, but, but after kind of graduating, I got there. And so I would like be really getting ready to play in front of people at an open mic or whatever. And I would feel the nervousness come on. And I would just say like, it's okay. I can have performance anxiety and play at the same time.
[00:13:19] And then I moved to, and this is getting into a Deb's spatial awareness sort of situation. But then I graduated to I will save a seat for performance anxiety in the front row.
[00:13:33] Deb: What felt different between the two of those because all of a sudden I'm looking at you. People can't see you, but like your whole face just changed, like it just brightened up and like a smile and so I'm just kind of like, all right, that to me, that feels like a different kind of thought.
[00:13:51] So I want to hear more about like your experience of that.
[00:13:55] Joan: Yeah. Um, that one was kind of like a combination of things, including recognizing that performance anxiety was really a signal that it's something that's very important to me to perform. And if it weren't important to me, then I wouldn't be on this journey.
[00:14:14] And so I wanted to welcome and allow performance anxiety to come with me to every gig. You are welcome. Come along. I'm going to save a seat for you in the front row and you can, infect me with, with all of the normal performance anxiety stuff because I've accepted that I can perform and have you at the same time.
[00:14:41] Or you can just sit in the front row, it doesn't matter. I'm I either way is is going to be fine because I know that I won't die, and that I can perform at the same time. I love that. Yeah. Yeah. That was kind of a nice, sweet place to be for a while. Like, come on over, hang out. And then over the course of all of this, I mean, believe it or not, these are the funny things that you realize with coaching over the course of all of this trying. I'm also, gaining experience. I'm doing the types of things that a musician does.
[00:15:16] Deb: Okay, what does that mean?
[00:15:17] Joan: I'm preparing for gigs. I'm practicing for gigs. I'm getting gigs. I'm like doing all these things that I never thought I would be able to do. And, I'm beyond getting through performance anxiety.
[00:15:30] I'm also like building my skill set as, as a musician of all that stuff. And, over the course of time, I found a music partner. And that was really cool because that was something that I really had always wanted. But I, never thought I was really good enough to get one. But after I started believing all these things about myself, it became much easier to see that I could have a music partner.
[00:15:59] And, um. And over the course of this time, of course, I'm doing different coaching experiences. I moved on from the clutch and I did Kori Linn's, Satisfied as Fuck, and you were in that one. And I graduated on and started doing some one on one work with you. I really had gotten there, musically by the time we Started working together.
[00:16:21] I was doing less, practicing of thoughts for just getting over anxiety. I had moved past it. But I was having some issues with having a music partner and that music partners other music partner and feeling like they were doing me a favor by allowing me to play with them.
[00:16:39] And so this to me was such a huge example and it's something when I look back on my notes from this year working with you that really stood out was that I was like, you know, well, they let me play with them and I feel like this. And you were like, hold on, they let you play with them. And I was like, well, yeah, you know, like they're more experienced.
[00:16:59] And, and you were like, do you bring anything to the table? And I was like, like dying inside.
[00:17:09] Deb: I have come to love that kind of gap. When a coach asks that kind of question, that kind of direct question. In which your kind of usual brain stuff, you can't just roll over with the same thoughts that you've been perpetuating. And then there's just this, like, wide open space.
[00:17:32] It's like the Grand Canyon for your brain. And then you're like, wait a minute. And then you gave me like the most voluptuous list of things that you bring to the table. It's like amazing. Your whole body was into it. You're like, and then this, and then this, and then this is what I do. And I'm a great host.
[00:17:53] I'm really fun to watch on stage. And I'm a good songwriter. Like you gave me lots of reasons. And I was like, Oh, maybe they're lucky that you like that. You're letting them play with you. Right.
[00:18:07] Joan: And then I was like, Oh yeah, hold on. I am very grateful for everyone who has helped me on my journey. And, um, and especially my music partner for hanging out with me and wanting to gig with me.
[00:18:23] But, um, the thought that I went home with that day that I wrote down that I started practicing was I honor myself as a musician. So I went from, I will not die from playing in front of people to, I honor myself as a musician and now I find when I am having these questions of how to guide myself or how to interact with other people around music that I say to myself, I honor myself as a musician.
[00:18:55] And it doesn't mean that I say, I'm the best musician in the world, everyone step off. It just means that I'm not hiding behind the bush of my own anxiety and fear and stepping out into the forest of my musical life.
[00:19:12] Deb: I love that. You saved a seat for that anxiety, for that stage fright to come with you and be invited along. It's like we honor whatever that positive intention is of that fear of that thing, of that lack of confidence, that part that's keeping you safe by not doing something. That you want to do because there is a fear that comes along with it and, you know, so sometimes we unpack that fear.
[00:19:41] We talk about the socialization behind it, that family history, but we don't have to resolve it. That's kind of what I love, which is like, we don't have to resolve the fear. If you're like, actually, I'm going to bring the fear with me. It's going to sit in the front row and I'm going to get up on stage and perform.
[00:19:58] Joan: Yes, and that speaks directly to another thing that people are worried about with coaching. They're like, Oh, it's going to be toxic positivity, or I'm just brainwashing myself out of. whatever feeling. Um, and the truth is that it's, it is about allowing and accepting that emotion and not pushing it away.
[00:20:23] That gets you the most growth. Like I had spent years being like, Oh no, anxiety starting anxiety starting. Oh no. Oh no.
[00:20:33] Deb: And that didn't work.
[00:20:36] Joan: It wasn't until I was like, okay, anxiety, you're welcome to be here. Um, and, and coaching helps with that so much because sometimes you, you don't even see how hard you're trying to resist the emotion and what we resist persists, right?
[00:20:56] So powerful.
[00:20:58] Deb: Amazing. Recently in our conversation, we did have that kind of clarity of oh, I don't need to resolve X to be able to do Y. I don't remember exactly, but I feel like that sounds familiar to me. What I like about being the coach is I don't have to actually remember every specific thing because the change is happening inside of you and for you and your life.
[00:21:25] And so it's whatever it is is important to you. It's not important that I necessarily remember every single part of it, if that makes sense.
[00:21:34] Joan: Yes. And in fact, it's like even helpful that you don't because the difference, I mean, like you're one of my favorite people, but like one of the differences between like a coach and a best friend or, or a friend is that oftentimes your friends are going to hang on to something that you.
[00:21:54] share and have an opinion about it. And that's great. They can have their own opinions, but what a coach does is help you figure out how you want to think and feel not, you know, yeah, he's such a jerk or whatever, like really helping you figure out how you want to feel, how you want to show up in the situation and design your life the way that you want it to be.
[00:22:19] And that's so powerful. It's really amazing.
[00:22:24] Deb: Yeah, I mean, thank goodness you're not asking me for advice on being a musician. Right. Because I know nothing about it. I mean, I'm sure I have lots of opinions, because like, you know, Right. Opinions are easy. But yeah, it's great. I think that's what's so brilliant about it is, I'm good at asking those questions.
[00:22:45] I'm also really able to track in that moment, in the way that you answer, what's not being said, what's being kind of skipped over. What are your presuppositions about things? And just gently. You know, inviting you to, like, think about things differently or and we do a lot of like, kind of somatic stuff.
[00:23:07] So even sometimes it's like, leaving the story aside and getting into what the feelings are and seeing if we can work on those kind of metaphorically, or some other way, and then go back to. The narrative, right?
[00:23:25] Joan: And your background with movement. And also hypnotherapy, you are able to get me to get back into my body more quickly than I can alone. And I know that I am a very bodily connected person and that's 1 of the reasons I've always been attracted to working with you. So it is really helpful to do visualization or when you tell me to close my eyes and like, kind of identify where the feeling is or the different qualities of that feeling, it really helps me to get there, especially because, like, my brain and I'm sure, like, most of your listeners and anyone who would be interested in that work is like running on a hamster wheel all the flippin time and even when I tell myself to stop and slow down and Find the feeling I sometimes can't do it.
[00:24:19] Cause then I'm like, am I finding the feeling right? Okay. Let's get on that hamster wheel now.
[00:24:24] Deb: Absolutely. I think for, for me, you know, because I did this work before I became a coach, that was one of the biggest revelations for me was like, Oh, I don't just have to. Think about things incessantly, like the thinking and the thinking and the thinking and the thinking and the thinking, you know, that habitual pattern of being on that hamster wheel often didn't garner me the results that I wanted and certainly didn't make me feel better.
[00:24:53] It was like something to do. It was like, my brain needed to do something. Right. It wasn't like, Oh yeah, I'm just going to be like, Oh, whatever. But before coaching, I didn't know that there were alternatives. And then all of a sudden I was like, Oh, wow, these alternatives are pretty amazing.
[00:25:10] Joan: Yeah. Recently you helped me out. So we've talked about musical stuff. We've talked about me being willing to buy stuff for myself. We've talked about like every relationship that I have. We've talked about my hair, um, and we also recently talked through a health issue. And, what I was doing in my brain And you helped me to see is that, if it has to do with health, then I throw everything thought work out the window.
[00:25:40] Then I'm like, this is the real lion in the jungle. I'm now going to die and no thought work is going to work is where I went. You helped talk me down from that, and see that if I separated myself just a little bit that I could stop, a pain cycle. A lot of what I was doing and you saw me do was just like, constantly scanning my body for every signal.
[00:26:10] So I was able to start talking to my brain and say, hey, I see that you're worried. It's understandable, but, we're going to try today to just take a break from worrying about that. And that was so helpful. And immediately I had three days without pain, like right away.
[00:26:29] And then it started to creep back in and my brain was like, okay, um, maybe you just need to like, uh, tell, I mean, really this is how sneaky brains are, maybe you just need to do a little bit of a better job listening to me. Um, and I was like, oh, yeah, that's a good idea. I'll do a better job listening to you.
[00:26:45] So I was like, okay, brain, I see that you're noticing some pain right now. And that makes sense because, and then I started listing out all the reasons why that made sense. And then you could die and then this whole thing. And I had sneakily tricked myself back into the same worry cycle. Another cool thing about coaching is that I could see it too.
[00:27:13] Deb: Yes. Yes. That's the best, right? Yeah that part of simply being able to notice what's happening in our mind, right? Creating what you just said earlier, which was that little bit of distance. Being able to be both in the jar and out of the jar at the same time.
[00:27:36] Joan: Mm hmm. It's almost like being like, Hey, hey Deb, I'm back in the jar again. Can you maybe tell me what you see on the outside to remind me because I, I'm kind of lost.
[00:27:51] Deb: Yeah. Yeah. So then what happened.
[00:27:54] Joan: Oh, then I was able to kind of be like, your brain tried to take an inch and you gave it a mile. Let's step back a little bit and get back to the inch. And that really helped. That is coaching so much for me is just that you can make growth. With your brain and sometimes slip, we don't even necessarily want to call it a slip, but then you can kind of lose hold of where you were and your coach can identify like, Hey, you've got this.
[00:28:24] You've done this before. Actually, it's going to be faster this time for you to be able to see this. And you're like, Oh yeah. Okay. Thanks. Good. Great. And without saying now, Joan, I'm going to point my finger at you and tell you how to live your life because I never once think you have ever told me how to do anything, how to see my feelings possibly, but like, not like this is what you should do and this is Deb's plan, which is what I first thought coaching would be like.
[00:28:53] Deb: I love that. What I am learning and as I do more work in pain reprocessing and coaching and hypnosis. All these things that come together, but what they all have in common is that they're processes of gentle neuroplasticity.
[00:29:12] And I think the important word for that, well, they're both words are important, gentle and neuroplasticity, right? Because almost like when we forget or we throw the tools out the window, or we're having something that feels so like, well, it won't work for this thing. The gentle part is so important because the way that brains learn, we don't generally just think a different thought and then it's automatic, right? The programming that we have currently often has been subconsciously installed over time without our approval in a lot of ways, especially when we're talking about socialization or things that we learn from our families or how we have just kind of developed our most Um, Useful coping strategies and I would say useful, like if we're alive, if they've done their job, then they're, then they're pretty amazingly useful.
[00:30:15] And then, so now we're in this place of wanting to change, doing this self growth, wanting things to be different. And there's a little bit of trying to unravel a sweater almost. Right trying to figure out, what, what are the threads that I need to pull on that are going to be the most useful and then doing that process of replacing it with something else.
[00:30:38] But we're not just like ripping the sweater to shreds. We're not ripping up our ourself and supporting any kind of negative self concept or negative voices, right? We're going into this process gently and with love. And what that gentleness does is it allows us to just have these moments where we completely forget or we're just like, Oh yeah, of course those old thoughts pop up all the time. Because that's how the brain works, right? And then it's the process of creating those kind of new thoughts that you practice over time. And what, what I love that you were talking about is how you've practiced pairing a thought with the action, and that is the process of neuroplasticity. It's not just I'm going to stay in this same chair and I'm just going to think these thoughts over and over and over again, and then it will change. But I'm going to take this new thought with me while I also do whatever the version of this action is, that is possible for me now and knowing that then that will continue to change the more that you practice.
[00:31:55] Joan: Absolutely. You saying gentle really reminded me of I had an issue where I wanted to buy myself this little thing and I felt really bad about it. And I, created all of these hurdles for myself so I wouldn't buy this thing. And this thing was $175. It wasn't like. It wasn't like a car.
[00:32:15] Deb: It wasn't a Lamborghini. I mean, if you wanted to buy a Lamborghini, I would be like, all right, well, how do you buy a Lamborghini? But yes, but it's not really the fact about the thing that creates that internal yes, or no, or difficulty.
[00:32:32] Joan: I had done this thing where I was like, okay, well. Only if there is a parking space directly in front, it will drive by and if there's a parking space directly in front, then I will know that's a signal from the universe that I should go in there and get it.
[00:32:43] Um, and, uh, you were like, wow, so you were, you know, making it harder for yourself to go. You were making a test. And I was like, yeah, I was for sure. I ended up getting this thing for myself and, I decided that a thought that I wanted to practice. Was that I make delightful choices for myself.
[00:33:04] And, um, I started practicing that thought because I, it wasn't like I wanted to go out and buy everything in the world, but I did want to find a way to know when it was okay to just allow myself to buy something because it was delightful. I'm a grown ass adults. I shouldn't have to have a conniption fit about everything.
[00:33:26] And, um, so I started practicing, I make delightful choices for me. And what I found was that gently and slowly that, that, um, belief about delight started to feed itself into different areas, that it wasn't just about purchasing things. It was about how do I want to spend my Saturday or am I going to say yes or no to this thing that I maybe do or don't want to do? So I started being like, Hmm, well, I make delightful choices for myself. So is this delightful? Am I delighted by it? Yes or no? I'm really digging into delight. And last time I talked to you, we were talking about New Year's stuff. And I was saying that I really want to focus on delight this year.
[00:34:12] And I upleveled that thought to I embrace delight, which is so juicy. And then, three days later in the New York Times, there was an article about having a delight practice. And I was like, well, okay, universe, I understand we're going along with each other. That is delightful.
[00:34:32] Deb: The New York Times is spying on you.
[00:34:34] It's amazing. You're like way ahead of them. Yeah. Allowing yourself to have an evolution. in a practice, really trying on a thought and practicing it and seeing what happens, not just demanding a particular outcome from it and being like, Oh, this thought better work, but just being willing to, to wear it for a while and see what happens and be like, because in all of that, the foundation that I see you really growing in with that whole process was on self authority and self trust.
[00:35:13] Right. So I'm an adult, which means, you know, and I make money and I can understand if something is in my budget and not, you know, people don't have to buy things that are technically in or out of their budget, but different people have different values. They have different goals and you're able to decide for yourself if this matches all of those things.
[00:35:38] And so it really was about not letting the universe decide that you could go buy this thing because it gave you a parking spot. But I love that because we all do that, right? We have these superstitions and so I love that now that you have this internal sense of delight to help be your guide for making decisions, choosing things. That's beautiful.
[00:36:05] Joan: Thank you. I feel like it's delightful.
[00:36:08] Deb: I love your face every time you say it too. There's this real conviction. There's this real sense of like, yes, this is my guiding light. Right now, and maybe in the future, it will be something different, but it's almost like, then you can take this process for anything.
[00:36:28] Joan: Yeah, this whole process and especially my year with you has helped me to just build that exact type of confidence where I know that I've got me and I can deal with whatever life brings my way, and work with my brain to make things better however, I want them to be. However, I want to show up is how I'm going to because I have a practice to do that.
[00:36:58] Deb: Amazing. What else would you like to share? I know that you said you went through your journal for the year about coaching that you would like people to know about?
[00:37:12] Joan: I think it's so essential and powerful to have an ally who can help you achieve what you want to achieve. And. Um, for anyone who's skeptical of coaching or anyone who thinks that coaching is about someone telling you what to do or blowing a whistle at you about your life, um, if you find the right person it can just empower you so much in such a different way than, than anything else can. It's been beyond valuable to me, I can't even begin to express all of the ways that my life has changed since I started doing it. And I'm just, I'm set up for an awesome, delightful. Inside the jar outside the jar experience for the rest of my life now, and I love it.
[00:38:11] Deb: That's amazing I feel like we could end here. Yeah But I'm not going to because I'm sure I'm not ready to stop talking to you. You've worked with a number of different coaches and obviously there's no hierarchy. It's not like this person's better. This person's worse, but there are differences. Right. You know, we're all ice cream and there are different flavors. So, is there anything from working with me, in the work that we're doing that stands out to you as something that really resonated or helped you that you can describe to somebody listening to this podcast?
[00:38:54] Joan: You know, you used the word gentle earlier, you're very gentle in a way that for me helped me to open up a lot. I have found working with other coaches in the past where I was maybe a little bit afraid of what they might think of me or my thoughts or my knowledge, like was I using things correctly? And I never felt that way with you. I've always felt immediately accepted by you. I really think that your background as a body worker, is a huge part of that because you, you kind of take people in as they are and see where they are today and then you meet them there. And there were times when I would come into our coaching sessions and I usually am doing them on my lunch hour, where I was like, I don't know if what I want to talk about today is like worth talking about. Like, for example, the time I wanted to talk about my hair.
[00:39:55] And I was like, I don't know if it's worth talking about and within two or three minutes, I'm telling this thing and you're like, Okay, Joan, this is way bigger than your hair. There's so much to dig into here. And I would just instantly feel at ease and like the real work of a coach and coachee relationship could happen. And I just felt so comfortable being with you and when you've guided me through visualizations and identifying sensations in my body. I never felt like, is this weird? Am I being weird? Is she going to think I'm weird? Am I doing it right? Just always like, okay. Oh, yep. I'm with Deb. I really just felt so comfortable, calm and relaxed and that allowed me to dig deeper than I had been able to in other coaching experience. Also doing it one on one, it's like, you know, I hadn't, I had only done group things before. I've had some one on one coaching sessions, but having a long term one on one relationship with you, just really helped me to get into the places just like a massage.
[00:41:14] Like we're going to get into this muscle and we're going to go deeper and maybe next time you'll have a different muscle that's bothering you, but we can come back to this one and continue to pay attention to it. It was just a really nurturing experience for me.
[00:41:28] Deb: Thank you.
[00:41:29] Joan: You're welcome.
[00:41:30] Deb: Part of my growing edge is to be able to receive positive feedback. My whole body's like ready to go. Just like crawl, dig a hole and crawl in. But I am sitting here and receiving that because also it's, it's not really about me, right? I do love how you're talking about it as the framework of a massage therapist, because I did that work for almost 10 years.
[00:42:00] And it really was this co creation. This experience, it was the environment and I thought about all kinds of things, like the experience from the moment I started talking to people to the moment that, they put their clothes on and, and left that, not that it had to be perfect, but that it's kind of cultivating this warm, friendly, welcoming place for things to happen, for people to feel better, but also in coaching, I think I take a very meta approach, whereas I'm often holding up a mirror to things being like, notice how that feeling changed once we invited in this breath or to look at it through this lens, right?
[00:42:48] Like, just helping you recognize, we're not just stuck in this fixed pattern so, I feel like it's a very meta experience you're both experiencing it and also I'm doing a little bit of teaching and also there's this space that we cultivate together.
[00:43:07] I'm going to, I'm going to now tell you, why I like working with you. Um, is that even when you have these moments of I don't know if this is worth coaching about, you still show up with just something that you're like, this little thing, it's like having a hangnail.
[00:43:29] Right. You're like, there's just some, there's this thing that's just bothering me. You're like, let's see what happens. You don't use that word, but I feel that there's that process where you're like, I'm really noticing that this thing is bothering me. And so even though that kind of voice comes along with it, that's like, I don't really know if this is worth it.
[00:43:51] There's this willingness and openness. And then when you're in that space of curiosity, there's this lightness. You're also adorable. You're really fun to talk to. Um, like when you smile and giggle, it's like, just, it is delightful. Which doesn't mean like, I don't need my clients to entertain me. We get to be relating with each other, you're not just sitting there being like, all right, fix me, you know, you're just being like, this is what I bring to the table. This is what I want to work through today or sometimes we'll then go revisit something. But then also, I really do trust that, you know, if I give you something and I call it homework, or we discover a new thought that you want to practice, usually at the end of your session, you've often picked out like, this is what I want to go practice and then, and then you do it. And I mean, I don't always practice new thoughts. You know, that's my confession, but I really trust that you'll do it. And together it's almost like, It's an alchemical process.
[00:45:05] We're like putting all the ingredients together. And then at the end, you're like, this is the thought that I'm going to practice. And I could see it come over you and your body knows it. And then the way you write it down. There's this whole transformation, even just in that moment.
[00:45:20] And as a coach, that's really fun for me to watch, but also I learn from coaching you as well, so that's been such a gift to me and yeah, so that's the nice things I have to say back to you.
[00:45:37] Joan: Oh, thank you so much. It has been really fun, playing with my brain together.
[00:45:43] Deb: I do feel like play, is a quality that, we've created together in terms of how the approach that you're taking to doing this kind of coaching work. Not that you need to be fixed, but that we're going to play and make change together.
[00:46:01] Joan: Absolutely.
[00:46:03] Deb: All right. Is there any other things that you want to share.
[00:46:07] Joan: I'm just super grateful for the whole experience and I have this whole journal filled up with thoughts from last year and thought downloads and I know I'll be looking back at it over time and, and establishing new volumes.
[00:46:25] Deb: I'm excited for all of the things that are yet to come with your music and life and there's so much, delight to be experienced.
[00:46:35] Joan: Indeed.
[00:46:38] Deb: All right. See you later.