Episode 29 Find Out What’s Possible Through A Positive Mindset with Elizabeth Meyer

[CHRIS McDONALD]

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Welcome to the Holistic Counseling Podcast, where you discover diverse wellness modalities, advice on growing your integrative practice, and grow confidence in being your unique self. I'm your host, Chris McDonald. I'm so glad you're here for the journey.

Welcome back to the Holistic Counseling Podcast. I'm your host, Chris McDonald. I want to introduce you to today's guest. Her name is Elizabeth Meyer. She's a caring, warm, and intuitive coach and psychotherapist. She specializes in working with women who are seeking personal growth, healing, and transformation. She helps women shift their mindset, removing self-limiting beliefs and other internal blocks to success so that women can dream big and live the life of their dreams. She's been a licensed psychotherapist for 25 years, and she's also a certified personal and professional coach. Welcome to the podcast, Elizabeth.

[ELIZABETH MEYER]

Thank you, Chris. Thanks for having me.

[CHRIS]

Can you tell my listeners more about yourself and your work?

[ELIZABETH]

Yes, so I love working with women and I especially have a sweet spot for working with women entrepreneurs. I read something once Chris that said that if a man meets 50% of a jobs requirements, he'll feel perfectly content to throw his hat in the ring and for a woman, it's something like 93%. So we have women who are perfectly qualified and perfectly capable of doing these jobs in these positions, but they somehow feel that they're not qualified. So I really love to work with women and help them just realize what's possible for them

[CHRIS]

I love that, feeling, knowing what's possible, thinking about what's possible. So is there something besides that quote, was there anything else that interested you in helping women around mindset and the imposter syndrome?

[ELIZABETH]

Probably my own story, Chris, I have my master's in social work. I'm a psychotherapist, I've been a therapist, I've done a lot of different things in the therapy world and I made a choice to stay home when my kids were little. I ended up being a stay-at-home mom for 12 years and when it was time for me to go back to work, I found myself really struggling. It just felt hard to claim what I knew and I found it really hard to go back to work and I found that I had to do a lot of mindset work on myself. I thought, I can't be the only person struggling with this. So there were definitely some tools and techniques that I use to help myself find my way back and find my way back with confidence. So I really wanted to offer that to other women because struggling by yourself just stinks.

[CHRIS]

Yes, we all need that support, don't we?

[ELIZABETH]

I think that we do.

[CHRIS]

Especially if you are someone who has that spirit of wanting to create things and build a practice, I think it really is something that you have to find all that support you can get.

[ELIZABETH]

Absolutely. And the more reading I did and the more I came to learn, the more I came to understand that as we stretch ourselves and as we grow, it's really normal to bump up against this fear. And I think a lot of people don't know that it's a normal part of the process and I think a lot of people let fear stop them now.

[CHRIS]

I think you're right because I think it's, don't you think it's true, too, when you come across something new that those feelings can be even stronger? Like if you're starting a new business or doing something you haven't done before, it can be like, "Oh my God, I don't know what I'm doing."

[ELIZABETH]

Yes, absolutely. And I know for myself, I'd done therapy for a long time, so it wasn't even like, I didn't know. I knew what I was doing. I just had taken a break for awhile. And I think for me, I found like motherhood was not, what do I want to say? Like at a job, you get performance reviews and you get paid and you get bonuses and people tell you. For me, I felt like as a mom, I wasn't getting that kind of validation, that external validation. Two-year-olds don't say, "Gee, mom, thanks for the clean underwear."

[CHRIS]

"You're the best."

[ELIZABETH]

Right. So I found it hard. And I think whether it's a new business or going back to work or trying something new or changing roles or taking a new job in a new organization, I do think fear rears up and just shifting into that mindset of, I can do this. I have the skills and if I don't have the skills, I'll learn the skills. You know, in my experience, a lot of women really struggle with fear and self-doubt, and I think there are some strategies that we can learn, like to help ourselves get that growth mindset. You have to learn them. And until you do, it's really easy to get stuck. And that self-repeating loop of, "I don't know how to do this, this is too hard. I don't know how. Maybe it wasn't cut out for this," or whatever kinds of inner self-talk we have that can talk ourselves out of doing scary things.

[CHRIS]

So what are some ways that women can overcome those self-limiting beliefs?

[ELIZABETH]

I think first Christ, it's just really important to normalize them, to know that everybody feels scared and everybody feels anxious when starting new things. That's really normal. It's not like there's something wrong with you because you're scared or nervous. Like congratulations, you're human. So just normalizing that and then realizing that almost everything is figureoutable. I think Marie Forleo wrote a book, Everything is Figureoutable. So there are things that we can learn. We can learn to do specific tasks. If there are special techniques, we can learn them. If they're a mindset skills, we can learn them. We just have to apply ourselves.

[CHRIS]

And I think it's hard. Sometimes I've worked with other women that struggled too. They know how to reframe. We can go over like the CBT therapy and oh, let's make some shifts in our thinking, but they may not believe it yet. Have you noticed that too, that if they shift from I'm not good enough to, I am good enough, but they're not really connecting with that, that sometimes can be a struggle to move to that kind of more helpful belief?

[ELIZABETH]

Oh, absolutely, Chris and I think it's so important to build the bridge. If where we are is I'm not good enough and where we want to get to is I can do this, what's the bridge that helps us get from A to B? And sometimes I find even just adding in the phrase, even if I don't believe that yet, I'm learning to trust that I can figure this out. I'm learning to trust I can try something new and succeed. I'm learning too. Because that gives us that permission because I think if we've spent years or weeks or months in I can't, suddenly tell yourself I can. You're not going to believe it.

[CHRIS]

And I think that would bring up some other negative feelings too, "Oh, I'm not connecting with this. I don't believe it." Because we can repeat affirmations all day long but if we're not believing, I always say that to clients do. If we don't believe in our heart and connect with it, it's not going to make any difference for us.

[ELIZABETH]

Absolutely. The phrase I like to offer to my clients, Chris, is I say, try this phrase on like you're trying on a coat. And then just offering people that permission, I see a lot of ahas. Oh, okay. In session, I will have people say it out. I'm like, "Okay, here's some words. Now you try it." And I have people say them out loud and they do and then we pause for a moment and I have people like check in. How does that feel? Sometimes things feel like a stiff new pair of dress shoes and sometimes things feel like a comfortable pair of sneakers of, oh, that feels really good. And then we get the ones in between where maybe if I wear them around a little bit, I'll get used to it but right now it's pretty awkward. So depending on how people respond to the affirmation, we can tweak it because I think you're right. It has to be something that we believe.

[CHRIS]

And if we're not there yet, I'm starting to believe this or I'm starting to get there. Like you said, I'm learning to believe in myself. But I think that's important to individualize because I think sometimes we might push other ways to reframe if they can't do it themselves. And for them to try on different ones, I think that's an important strategy.

[ELIZABETH]

It is, and I think that's sometimes where that neutral third party can really help because sometimes we're so stuck in, oh, I can't. And hearing someone say, oh, well, just tell yourself you can, if you don't believe it. It doesn't feel believable. And maybe you're so stuck in that repeated thought process that you can't see your way to any different options or any different affirmations or any other ways to sort of break that cycle of I can't.

[CHRIS]

Do you have any success stories from the women you've worked with that have overcome some difficulties and really gone on to be successful?

[ELIZABETH]

Oh, I do, one of my favorites, one of my first coaching clients. She came to me, she was doing work that she used to enjoy and she didn't really enjoy it anymore. We worked together for a while for her to really get clear about what her new dream was and one day she said to me, "Elizabeth, I want to have a pet walking business." I was like, "Wow. Okay." She really, she loved animals, she felt like she really connected with animals and it took a while for us to use some of these tools and techniques for her to really grow her faith and trust in herself. And Chris, it was such a happy day when she handed in her resignation. She opened up her own business, an Aussie pet sitter and she was very successful at what she did.

[CHRIS]

That's always nice, I'm sure for you to see those success stories to come from one place where they're unhappy and to be able to find what really brings them joy.

[ELIZABETH]

Yes, it really is amazing. I say I have the best job in the world because it is, it's so profound when people can come with a dream that they want, but that they're scared of. And when they can really step into it and take steps to make it happen, it's fantastic.

[CHRIS]

So you do both therapy and coaching?

[ELIZABETH]

I do therapy and coaching.

[CHRIS]

How do you separate those two, because I think that's a big discussion in the counseling world at times, right?

[ELIZABETH]

Yes. It is a big discussion. And I certainly like the idea of the ease of keeping it all under one roof. But I understand about the importance of separating it just for protecting your license. So I have my therapy practice three days a week at Elizabeth Meyer Counseling, where I do the traditional psychotherapy for people with depression and anxiety and relationship issues and then two days a week, I do the coaching. I'm at movingyouforwardcoaching.com. That website is still under construction, but you can find me on Facebook. And I lead a group for women entrepreneurs and it is so exciting, Chris, to see people begin to take steps towards their dreams. Psychotherapy, I do individuals, one-on-one work and for the coaching, I'm starting to do more and more group work because I really see the power of the group support and not only the group support, but when one person starts taking steps towards their dreams, it frees everybody else up to take steps towards their dreams too.

[CHRIS]

I can see that to really just be like, "Wow, so this really can happen for me," instead of by themselves thinking about it.

[ELIZABETH]

Absolutely. So when we get on the Zoom call and someone says, "Oh my gosh, I found a web person and now my website's up," that gives everyone else, everyone's like, "Oh, okay." And one person said, "Well, I was really scared, but I did this on my blog this week and I got a great response." Now it's like, oh, okay. So you can still feel scared and you can still put yourself out there in a way that feels comfortable, in a way that feels authentic and in a way that resonates with you. And I just think there's, it's so powerful to your peers beginning to take these baby steps. And I feel like when you're in a group like that, it gives you permission to move forward too.

[CHRIS]

Oh, I could see that. So the group that you're going to be working on, so what would that format look like?

[ELIZABETH]

So I have a couple of different options in my mind that I'm playing with, but for right now I'm thinking about an eight week group of Zoom calls, weekly Zoom calls, some homework in between that we co-design and co-create, because I think the other piece of that group, Chris that's so important is the peer accountability.

[CHRIS]

That's what I was going to ask you about.

[ELIZABETH]

Yes, for sure. I think that's also one of the biggest differences between coaching and therapy. In the coaching group, we commit to taking action to moving forward towards our dreams and when someone says, I'm committing to doing this by next time and they know that six other people are going to ask them, "Hey, how'd you do towards your goal?" let's just say that's highly motivating.

[CHRIS]

When they know the group day is coming up.

[ELIZABETH]

You got it. I feel like one-on-one, it's always, it's easy to push it off of, oh, I didn't have time or, oh, this came up or, but really it's just, you're scared. And I think the power of that group accountability is what kind of gets people over that hurdle sometimes.

[CHRIS]

I would think too, the universality of even if it is a coaching group, the same as for counseling, isn't it that knowing that other people feel the same way that you're not alone in the fears and imposter syndrome.

[ELIZABETH]

Absolutely. I think that's so important. I think I didn't quite understand that when I first started out, but over my time doing this work, I've really come to see the power and the benefit and the support of that. Like you said, wow, everybody else feels this way too. This is just a normal thing. When starting something new, it's normal to be scared. It's normal to feel just concerned, "Can I do this? Is this too much for me? Is this too big for me?" And then just all holding hands and taking a baby step together. You start to feel like, okay, I can do this one small thing and then moving forward on that one small thing gives you permission to take another baby step and another baby step. At the end of eight weeks, when you string all those baby steps together, they add up.

[CHRIS]

Absolutely, because I think if you look at the big picture, if you're a big picture person that you can see all the steps and everything you got to do, if you're starting a business or doing something new that it just can, I think a lot of people get frozen. They just don't even start. So when you break it down, I think that could make it more like in bite sized pieces, they can really take those steps forward.

[ELIZABETH]

Absolutely. And I think that's another important piece of the work and another important piece of the group process. So I'm glad you mentioned that Chris, because we talk about that a lot in our group. Oh my gosh. There's so much to do. I'm so over, it can be really overwhelming. And I think you're right. That level of overwhelm can lead to paralysis. "What do I do first? Where do I start? Where do I put my time? Oh my gosh, I don't know. I'm just going to go do something else that lets me escape from that anxiety and feeling so triggered by it." So together we figure out, okay, if you were to do one small thing this week, what would that be? And together we break it down. For some people it will be the website. For some people, it would be the Facebook page. For some people, it will be, I invited my first guest to be on my blog or I launched my first course. Whatever it is, people get to pick for themselves, which I think is really important. But I think the other really important thing is just, it almost doesn't matter what you pick, but you have to pick something.

[CHRIS]

Do something right to get that momentum going.

[ELIZABETH]

Yes, exactly.

[CHRIS]

Do you find a lot of women procrastinate?

[ELIZABETH]

Oh my gosh. That was so, first of all, let's not limit that to women. Who doesn't procrastinate? And I think it has to do with that fear again. Tackling new things is really scary and like ---

[CHRIS]

We avoid it.

[ELIZABETH]

We avoid it. It's human nature, but we don't want to do what feels scary or hard or overwhelming. We pick something easier. So for sure, I think a lot of people procrastinate on doing new, hard things. And again, I think that's where the power of the group and the accountability and the support come in. And I also think that there's something about having some skin in the game. So when you plunk down money for a group, I feel like that's a way that you're saying to yourself, I'm really committing to my own growth and I'm really committing to take steps to make this happen for myself. And yes, I feel like that's a motivator too.

[CHRIS]

And I know you mentioned you're an intuitive coach. I've not heard that before. What does that mean?

[ELIZABETH]

Well, I don't know that I market myself as an intuitive coach, but I think that I'm a person who has intuition. So what that means to me, Chris, is that oftentimes when I'm working with people, sometimes they'll get images or words or feelings. What I'm finding lately is it's a lot of visual metaphors and people really like that because when we're dealing with thoughts and feelings, they're so intangible. It's not like we can pull out our fear and say, oh, my fear is 10% less this week than it was last week. It doesn't work like that. So with the use of metaphors and images, it gives people something concrete to relate to. So sometimes I'll talk about, and again, it's so client-specific, but there was one particular client and we were using a gardening metaphor and I was comparing her to a beautiful Rose Bush in a garden that someone had let go to weed. That part of what she needed to do was mentally pull the weeds. That image was very resonant for her and she was like, "Oh my God, I get it."

[CHRIS]

People really connect with the metaphors and visualizations like that.

[ELIZABETH]

Yes, I find that they do. So in my work with people, I just tune into what images I get in my mind and I offer them. And most of the time, what I find is that the images that come to me are very resonant. And again, it helps people connect to what we talk about in a really concrete kind of way. We can't pull out the fear and say, oh, look, it's 10% less today, but it's easy for someone to visualize a Rose Bush and a garden with weeds and pulling weeds.

[CHRIS]

Do you use that metaphor to help them move forward too, and what do I need to do? What is the weed?

[ELIZABETH]

Yes.

[CHRIS]

I would think.

[ELIZABETH]

Sometimes the weed is that negative thought of, "Oh, I can't do this or it's too hard or it's scary." Sometimes we can take the metaphor a little further, but what do you need to feel safe in that weed in the Rose Bush? Do you need gloves? Do you need pruning shears? Do you need someone to weed with you? And talking about it in that way can sometimes give people access to tools and resources and things that maybe they could find to help them move forward, that if we didn't use this metaphor, they wouldn't realize they needed.

[CHRIS]

Yes, there's a lot you can do without, isn't?

[ELIZABETH]

There is.

[CHRIS]

So what's a holistic strategy or technique that you like to use as part of your daily practice?

[ELIZABETH]

For me, I've really taken to meditation over these past two years. I'm really grateful that I've added meditation to my daily practice. I find those 10 minutes of just connecting with my breath to really be a solid grounding place for me so that I can come from just like my own calm, quiet center when I work with people. Because life is busy. I think for everybody, life is busy and especially as we come out of this year and a half pandemic, as life picks up, I think it feels even busier. So for me, I find those 10 minutes of just centering and breath work to really be an important platform for me to start my day from.

[CHRIS]

I totally agree, because I meditate most days as well. And I find that I need sometimes even during the day, just to take a minute just to brief, to stop. I think that's one thing from the pandemic that I've learned that we think we all need to stop more.

[ELIZABETH]

Yes, absolutely. And I think I've used it with every client I've worked with, is the breath work, just taking a moment to connect to the breath. I sometimes say that when you can picture an ocean, like a really rough choppy ocean with big waves and big swells, you can think of your breath, like dropping an anchor down to the bottom of that ocean, where all that turbulence is up above but down at the bottom of the ocean, the ocean is still. Your breath is like an anchor that can lead you into that calm, stillness so that you can find that calm, quiet place and come from there rather than all that turbulence above.

[CHRIS]

You have the best metaphor. I love.

[ELIZABETH]

Thank you, Chris.

[CHRIS]

That's great. That's a great way to think about breathwork.

[ELIZABETH]

Yes. Don't you find that when you can tap into your own breath, that is like calming those waves?

[CHRIS]

Oh, I teach a lot of that too, and I think for us, to do it for ourselves and to teach clients it gives us the benefit both ways, doesn't it?

[ELIZABETH]

It absolutely does.

[CHRIS]

Now, what's a takeaway you could share today that could help listeners that might be just starting their holistic journey?

[ELIZABETH]

I'd like to offer that everyone can create an affirmation for themselves and just think of one good reason why you can have what you want and focus on that. Focusing on why you can't have what you want can become bigger than any fears and doubts that you may have. I hope people remember that if you can dream it, you can make it happen for yourself. Even if it feels really big, even if it feels really scary, I'm sure that there are communities of people doing what you want to do. Go find those communities. All it takes is one community and one moment of connection to begin to tap into what's possible for you.

[CHRIS]

That's so helpful. Thanks for sharing that.

[ELIZABETH]

You're welcome.

[CHRIS]

So have I missed anything else, Elizabeth, you want to share?

[ELIZABETH]

No, I don't so Chris. I think we've talked about the power of community and the power of some help and support to create openings and possibilities where sometimes we get stuck in fear and doubt. So just to remember that if you can dream it, it is possible and the help and support is available for you to help you step into and tap into what you want to create for yourself. And if people want to find out more about me and my work, they're welcome to find me at Moving You Forward Coaching. As I said, my Facebook page is up and the website is still under construction, but feel free to stop by and see when it's open for business

[CHRIS]

When this podcast airs, which will be a later date, so maybe at that time your website will be up too. So we can definitely put it in the show notes. We'll put the Facebook information in there as well. But thank you so much for coming on the podcast today, Elizabeth.

[ELIZABETH]

Oh, thanks for having me as a guest, Chris. It's a pleasure to be here

[CHRIS]

And thank you so much to my listeners for checking out today's episode and just a friendly reminder to subscribe rate review, wherever you get your podcasts.

And again, this is Chris McDonald sending each one of you much light and love. Until next time, take care.

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