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Welcome back! This is your kind of well, kind of toxico Sarah Rittendale bringing you another episode of Well-ish.

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Hi guys! Today I'm going to be talking to Michelle E. Dickinson. She is a resilience coach and workplace resilience strategist, author, and TED speaker.

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We're covering what resilience looks like and how you can build the skills in order to become more resilient in your day-to-day life, as well as other topics such as people pleasing, overcoming adversity, connecting to your highest self, and living a life that you are proud to live.

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Please do not forget to rate, review, and subscribe to the show so I can continue to bring more impactful and powerful self-improvement tips to build your own personal self-improvement right to your beautiful little eardrums.

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Now without further ado, here is the interview with Michelle E. Dickinson.

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Michelle Dickinson, welcome to Well-ish. I am so excited that you are here.

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I'm very happy to be here. Thank you for inviting me.

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Absolutely. I will go ahead and let you introduce yourself. Tell us who you are, what you do.

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Awesome. Yeah. So first and foremost, I am a workplace mental health strategist, focusing on specifically on resilience as a lifestyle.

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I am a resilience coach, and I do this work because I have been deeply affected by mental health challenges myself.

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I grew up with a mom who had bipolar disorder, and then I was diagnosed with depression two years ago.

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After spending 19 years in a pharmaceutical job, I decided to start my own company.

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And so I get to help people every day, build their personal resilience and feel better and restore balance into their life so they don't hit burnout.

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So I always thought resilience was something that you just kind of did. You just picked up one day and were like, I'm going to be resilient.

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Or you experienced something and have that, but obviously that's not true based on your work.

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So what are some of the main ways that somebody builds resilience?

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Yeah, like you could make, I mean, like in all fairness, you could make a declaration that I will be resilient.

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But here's the thing, like life is going to grow at us a lot of obstacles and challenges, and it's all in how we deal with it that makes us resilient or not.

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So, you know, the work that I do is all about boosting resilience so that we can dance with the stress of life and not have it devour us.

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So what I am out to do is to remind people that just like how we tend to our physical body, we should be tending to our emotional well-being.

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And if we can proactively take care of ourselves, we'll be better positioned to navigate those peak levels of stress and challenge in our life.

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That definitely makes sense. I feel like that's something I try to work with too, that I think that this is just kind of the way my brain operates.

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And I have to find a way to work with that compared to trying to fight that, like fight this like mentality that my brain has and learn how to live with it, if that makes sense.

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Yeah. Well, it has so much to do with like, what do we do every single day that's going to help us stay balanced?

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You know, a lot of people tend to ignore their emotional well-being or mental health until they hit a point where they have no choice but to look at it.

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So I'm all about, let's get ahead of it. Let's start doing things for ourselves that nourish our emotional well-being so we don't have to wait to that point where we're up against a wall, we're struggling because in those moments of crisis, it's even more difficult.

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So resilience is really all about a lifestyle. It's about how do I tend the garden of my mind every single day?

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What am I doing to promote balance in my day-to-day lifestyle and not put it off until I feel like it's urgent and I need to give it attention?

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Yes, I agree. I love that the way that you said that. So if it's a lifestyle, would you say that there are specific characteristics of a resilient person?

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Yeah, well, I think it's what we do. I mean, are we making our emotional well-being and mental health a priority every day? You know, like, let's start with the basics. You know, you wake up in the morning and you're laying in bed and the muscle part that you maybe work too hard at the gym is crying out for attention.

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So we give it attention, you know, whether we take an Advil or something to ease the pain, we do something about it. But oftentimes when we wake up in the morning, we're not thinking about how am I feeling emotionally? How am I feeling mentally?

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What's weighing on me? How can I address what's weighing on me so it doesn't escalate throughout the day? You know, is there something I know to do in my toolbox when I'm starting to feel this way where I can head it off before it escalates?

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So really, it starts with self-awareness and forcing yourself to get present to how you're feeling every single day. Like, don't step over that. Don't ignore it and pretend you don't feel a certain way because the reality is it's going to show up throughout your day in some way and how you react or how you respond to somebody.

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So it starts with self-awareness and self-reflection.

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Okay. So do you think then that some people are more resilient than others? Like, well, I feel like a lot of the time some people take their adversities or just anything that happens and they identify with it more than other people.

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Or do you think everyone has an equal opportunity to build the skill of being resilient?

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Everyone has the ability to build their personal resilience. It's what you do every day is either filling your emotional well-being bucket or depleting it.

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And a lot of people don't even realize that what they're doing every day is actually taking away from their bucket. So like, let's talk about the person that has the news on in the background all day or in the evening, right?

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Or in the morning. Oh, I just have the news on while I have my coffee for an hour. Okay. Well, listen, maybe that's not positively influencing your emotional well-being.

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So maybe if you put on something else that maybe you learn something or something else that would motivate or inspire you instead of, you know, hearing about all the horrible things in the news, maybe that would actually fill your bucket instead.

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But there are little things that like micro changes that I guide my clients to adopt are what makes a bigger change and a bigger shift in how they feel and how resilient they are when real substantial challenge comes along.

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Sure. So what do you think others struggle with the most when it comes to acquiring resilience or just maintaining resilience long term?

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Yeah, I think, you know, I so I break it down into two two areas. So if you were to ask me, I think this is probably easiest way to explain it. How do you coach people, Michelle? How do you how do you support people in building resilience?

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Like, what does that even mean? Right. So I'm not a life coach. I'm a resilience coach. And so what I am out to do is to really have you take a look at what do you do every day? What are your day to day practices and habits?

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What are things that are going to boost how you're feeling? Right. So back to the news, right, that how many hours of sleep are you getting? You know, some of the basic things, if you are coming to the plate of life every morning, depleted, you are never going to be able to deal with the basic stress of the day, let alone a life event that's coming around the corner.

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Sure. So we really dive into what are your day to day strategies? What are you, what are you doing every day? And what small shifts can you make to feel better? So we're really looking and analyzing through the resilience audit, what people do every day.

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And then we have a conversation around mindset, because if your mindset is life is always happening to me, instead of life is happening for me, then we have a bigger thing we need to talk about because if you are living and dwelling and a victim mentality, you're never going to see that.

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You're never going to see the opportunity for growth and adversity. So we have to have that conversation. So there's really two ways. But it all does start with what do you do every single day?

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I definitely relate to that. I actually, I talked about that on my last episode. I never realized how much taking care of yourself physically plays a role into your mentality and just putting intention behind making sure that you're eating every day and just making sure that you're drinking water every day.

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It's these bare minimum things that you could be doing in order to better yourself on a day to day basis. And when you don't do that, you fall into that cycle and that habit and you don't realize how much that can affect your mentality.

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Totally. Well, if you don't feel good, if you don't feel good physically feel good mentally feel good. If you don't, if you're not feeling good, you know, your energy is going to be low.

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You're not going to be able to look at life as the, you know, the glass and tap full because you're, you're tired, you're exhausted. I can't tell you how many people come to me in a state of pure exhaustion and just hanging by a shoestring.

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Like when you're in survival mode, there is no place to create. So we got to get you out of survival mode and back in the cockpit of your life so that you can create. Okay, this is what I really do want. But I can't even see that when I'm just merely trying to hold it together.

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And that is such a good point with what you were saying at the beginning of this when people go to make a change is when they're hanging on just by a thread and you can't just start building on these mental health habits or self improvement habits right off right out the gate.

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Like you have to be able to survive first.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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So tell me about your resilience roadmap to feeling better and emotional well being. What is that and what does it do?

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Yeah, so the roadmap is really interesting. It's a, it's basically part of my audit. So I do a resilience audit. If so, like a new client will come to me for coaching, we will go through the audit. We would really analyze their day to day, their day to day habits and what they're doing every day.

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And then I provide the resilience roadmap which are the whole suite of things that you can, you can tap into if they work for you. We want to get you suited up with a toolbox of strategies and and things that you want to do to be helping yourself nourish yourself so that you feel good and you have good energy and you're, you have stress mitigation tactics things that you can do because you know stress is always going to be there.

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So how are you helping yourself process that stress. So it's a, it's a suite of things. It's not like one size fits all. It's like, you know, what works for you might not work for someone else. So I want people to know like what, here are some things that I know that could make a big difference for how you feel.

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And then you try them on and see, see what work.

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There are things that work for some people that don't work for other people. And I think that was something I made a big mistake with when I started my wellness journey, my mental health journey that I tried to just pack all of the things that people said into my brain and was like, okay, I'm going to do all of them.

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And that's just not how it works.

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So I think it's really cool that your roadmap isn't one size fits all that you have to work with each client individually in order to figure out what's going to make that person resilient themselves because what's going to make one person resilient obviously isn't going to work for everybody.

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Yeah, yeah. I mean, so if I'll, I'll talk to someone and they'll say like my energy is like a two out of five and they'll say like my stress is like a five out of five, right.

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And I'm like, okay, so you have low energy, and you have high stress. So what are your, what are your, what are your tactics to deal with stress. Well, I really don't have any or I hit the bar every so often with my girlfriends we have a drink and I'm like well that's maybe not an unhealthy that's really not a healthy

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I mean, we, we want to find healthy vices not unhealthy vices. Sure. And then the next question will be like well how much sleep are you getting. Well, you know, I have this project so I'm working late so maybe like four or five hours. So, right there, you're not sleeping you just need really at the end of the day you need

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someone to take a mirror and shine it up to you and say hey, hey, like you need to sleep if you're not sleeping how, how are you giving yourself a fair shake at having a good day.

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Well, and if you don't have like, totally things to manage the stress like the stress is going to devour you so like are you working out. Do you meditate do you, do you ever like you know do things just for you or you just like sort of like living to serve everyone around you

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and like hoping you can be okay. Oh my god, right absolutely. Like you say they don't even realize that they're doing it. So, what do you wish people understood more about resilience.

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That they have they have a lot more control over boosting their emotional well being and their personal resilience than they think they don't have to be a sitting duck for burnout. That's the thing like people think, you know, I'm just going to work.

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I'm going to work my butt off and like there's a vacation three months down the road and that's what I'm really going to decompress.

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No, no, like resilience and building emotional well being is something you got to do every single day like don't put it off for that like, you know, distant vacation or distant spa day that you think you're going to unravel you know compounded stress for six months it doesn't work that way.

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It's funny too that people think that because then those typically are the same people that want to live a lifestyle of happiness that they're like I just want to be happy. And in my opinion I don't believe happiness is like a thing like it's just an emotion that comes and goes like embarrassment and sadness and whatever else.

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And you're not allowing yourself to reach this consistent state of contentment because you're putting it off until the vacation or whatever else, where if you were kinder to yourself every single day like you're saying you reach that feeling more so or more often.

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Or fundamentally if you prioritize yourself. Sure. Yeah, absolutely. People don't I mean I talked to the average mom who's living for her children and her and making sure her husband's okay. And she if there's scraps left in her in her day she she will then you know do something for

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herself like I don't know and I just go oh my goodness but like but you're the hug like you got to take care of you like they're counting on you and then and then you're not even showing up the best version of you so who's we're really winning at the end of the day right and like you said then you're not benefiting anybody

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yourself or the kids or husband nobody know absolutely what tool would you say that most people have inside of them that they aren't utilizing.

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There's so many things like you know I'm a big fan of turning off the noise.

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You know our mind can be our greatest asset or you know biggest handicap so you can learn to control your thoughts and your mind.

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Your life is going to substantially shift. So I believe in meditation because I know how meditation has helped me styling the noise.

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It's a very stimulated world whether we're on our phones or in front of technology or you know having people around us that fill our heads with their ideas and their thoughts it's a very noisy world.

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And so oftentimes we're walking around like with so much stuff in our head that that actually causes us stress.

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So taking the pause to step away from the noise and to calm all of that through meditation and through the power of our breath is powerful.

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It's like giving ourselves a tall glass of cool water but so many people are busy they're just too busy and they think I don't have time for this it's like well if you try it and you realize how good it could help you feel and how present it could make you in your in in the moment.

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You might want to fight for that 10 minute lip of meditation for yourself.

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Yes absolutely and I I'm a person that totally does the meditation and agrees with the breathwork and the breathwork specifically.

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I mean meditation for sure but breathwork specifically for me I feel I heard something I don't know where and I wish I did but that you have to calm your audit autonomic system first before you try to calm your brain you can't think yourself out of thinking basically.

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And so you calm yourself down by doing the breathwork and then you can have more clarity in your mind and are able to make these proper decisions and become this you know more well rounded version of yourself long term.

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Yeah for sure for sure.

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Yeah.

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Okay so do you personally ever feel yourself struggling with resilience still today after you've been coaching it for so long.

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So that's the beauty of this like I do not profess to have it all figured out and I actually have no problem admitting to my clients I'm on the same journey with them.

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I'm just might be like one step ahead of them.

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If that at times maybe maybe not others.

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And I have information to share with them that they may not have considered.

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But I'm on my own journey make no mistake I constantly have my own my own opportunities for growth and expansion because if I'm not growing and expanding I can't serve my clients.

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So I have to keep myself moving forward growing and expanding and and because I have dealt with depression, and I'm an entrepreneur, it's very I'm very susceptible to being in that dark place again so I have to the very practices that I'm teaching my clients I'm doing because I

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know they help me they help keep me above the line they help keep me in a happy place in a balanced place feeling good.

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But yet there's always something to learn about you like there's always something to discover and grow and expand and I am right there with with my clients on that journey.

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Awesome.

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So I think that that's so important because I feel like it makes it so much more realistic for them.

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I feel like a lot of the time when I feel myself needing to be resilient, let that be like I fail.

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I'm just in a bad mental health space.

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I'm feeling burnt out.

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It takes me a little bit of time to get my bearings like I have a freak out moment first like let that be for five minutes or three days.

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Is it possible to have a rapid resilience turnaround.

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I think you know I think it's a very individual thing.

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I think if you know what you need to do to pull yourself out of a funk and you have a level of awareness self awareness on up.

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I feel it coming.

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I think I need to blah blah blah I need to pick up the phone I need to get outside for that run whatever it is I need to know whatever it is I need to do to help myself.

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Yes, the more you are self aware the more you know what your thing is that you need to do.

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I mean for me exercise if I feel myself sliding into a slump I'm like oh I definitely didn't work out for two days well maybe that's a problem you know what I mean like so I have that level of awareness that I know what to do or.

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I'm in a dark place I think I need to call my girlfriend and talk this out right like this is really this this is like in my head and I can't get out of this vortex I'm in right now.

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So it's knowing what your go to strategies are so I would say it's absolutely possible but you have to have a level of self awareness so that you don't sit in it for an excessive amount of time.

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Right, I think that is important to know so you can put the intention behind it because I feel like like maybe you even have the awareness of it but you're like but I have all this other stuff to figure out I got to do this and I don't have time to go to the gym.

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Or I don't have time to go for a walk and having the awareness and knowing that that's one of the only things that you're going to be able to do in order to, as you were talking about earlier give your full self to the other things that you have to do in your life.

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Totally, absolutely.

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Yep.

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Would you say that resilience then is more of a natural skill or an intentional practice.

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Um, I think, I think it, it's definitely as human beings I feel like we are naturally resilient but I also feel like we can't expect ourselves to strengthen that that ability unless we are kind to ourselves and nourish ourselves and, and I think that is required in a daily practice to do that every day.

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Okay, that's interesting that you say that it's you do think that we are naturally resilient.

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I do.

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What makes you say that I just think that people underestimate how strong they are I mean look at adversity that has shown up in your life has there ever been a time when you've not gotten through it.

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Totally true.

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You're right.

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Everything in the end and when you're in it you're like, Oh, how am I going to get through this but yet you do.

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Right.

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And then you look back and you go, I did that.

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Right.

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I mean, honestly, like I ran a couple or I did a few triathlons and I remember the first one going this is ludicrous. I don't know how I'm going to do it.

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And I did it and I was like, look at me, look at how strong I am, look at how good, like I can do this stuff. Like, so we underestimate our own power sometimes, you know, or we catastrophize it, catastrophize it.

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You know what I'm trying to say.

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Yeah, I got you.

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I'm like so much worse than it is and it's like, no, it's just like the lily in the pot in the pond, like just like just get through the mud. What's on the other side is worth it.

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Right. Absolutely. And I think almost when you do the intentional practice too much, you can start to overwhelm yourself. So like you say just knowing you are capable of doing it and that's what's going to build the skill.

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Because the more you see yourself able to accomplish these things like you ran the triathlon and you're like, I did it. Now I'm going to sign up for two more. Is you're able to accomplish more because you have the knowledge now that you can do it.

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I always say that we are stronger than any circumstance.

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Yes, absolutely. So transitioning more so into burnout then what do you think are the most common causes of burnout that you've seen in your coaching.

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I think it's just the neglecting and ignoring our emotional well being in terms of like the day to day. Right. Like thinking I can power through this. I got this. I'm just going to keep going like we're not little machines we're not little.

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We're not little like computers that have an endless, you know, supply of our here. Like that's that's the thing that we have to realize. So like people say, you know, oh, I hit burnout. Well, like what were you doing leading up to that were you thinking that you could consistently work 12 hour days 14 hour days and you weren't going to

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burn out because the human body is the human body. You got to be gentle, you know, you got to take care of it. So I think that, you know, people underestimate and it's not about toughness people say, you know, oh, I'm tough. I can do this. I won't hit burnout.

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But like, why, what, why are you going to create that unnecessary stress and strain on your body? Like, we have these one precious bodies that were given in this life. Why would we not want to care for it and nourish it?

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And I when I think of burnout for myself, I think of two specific things, one of them being so I'm not a big balance person. I know that sounds horrible because you're supposed to have a balanced lifestyle but I mean it in the sense of like, if I have a goal in mind, I feel like the

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other stuff, not that I'm necessarily neglecting it, but that it takes more of the back burner compared to the goal that I'm trying to achieve. So that's when I typically experience burnout because I am trying so hard to achieve this goal.

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So what does it look like to prevent burnout and still work hard to achieve something you want or achieve a goal?

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Sounds like tunnel vision and I've been guilty of that. It's like, I have like, I think we can do anything for, for sprints, for short sprints, like, you know, we're pretty strong human beings, we can do that.

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It's when that becomes the norm, you know, that becomes like part of like your, how you do life. Like, I would say tunnel vision is very easy to just focus and just be like, I'm just going to go and get this done.

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I've got this goal, I got to do it. But I would also say, wouldn't it be amazing if you could enjoy the journey to getting that done and by pausing for yourself, wouldn't that be a much more pleasurable experience?

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And wouldn't you show up better if you took a few minutes to nourish yourself? Wouldn't you give it a better, a better effort instead of like, you know, completely depleting yourself?

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Totally. I feel like you just helped define enjoy the journey because I feel like that's something that people say a lot and it's kind of like, what are you talking about?

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Like, I have this, all this life that I have to deal with. How do I actually enjoy it while it's happening? And that's exactly how you do it. That totally makes sense.

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The other thing that I think of what you just said is doing the same thing every single day. And I noticed on your website that you talk about that, that you help people not live their life like Groundhog Day.

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So what are some daily things people can do to not live the same day over and over?

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Stop falling into your day. That's like the number one thing. So I have coached over the past, I would say two years.

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My goodness, I can't even tell you how many I have 55 teachers right now I'm coaching. So I would say over the past two years, like hundreds of people have come through my zoom screen.

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But I would say that the number one thing I have heard that they struggle with is the fact that they are falling into their day. What do I mean by that?

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So think about it. You wake up in the morning, you hit snooze, you hit snooze again, you hit snooze again and then, oh crap, look at the time. You catapult out of bed, right?

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The cortisol levels are through the roof. You rush to get everything done. There's no time to take a pause and breathe and maybe even think about what you're grateful for. There's no opportunity to meditate because now you're late and you got to just get to work.

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You get in your car to go to work. You're dealing with stress and the road to get to work. You get to work and then boom, here we are all over again Groundhog Day. And we have stress and coming at us from all the work responsibilities.

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So falling into your day, you're not even giving yourself a shot to have a good day. You're just literally at the effects of your life. You're at the effects of everything happening.

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So I say start off by being a little bit more intentional. Like get to bed at a reasonable hour. Don't scroll in bed until all hours of the morning, like watching all the TikTok influencers.

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Like just get your sleep so you can get up in the morning. You can sit down, have a cup of coffee, a cup of tea and just ease yourself into the day. You know, nourish yourself a little bit before you go caring for everyone around you.

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Give yourself a shot at having a good day by not falling into your day.

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Absolutely. That's so important. And I think too that, like you say, putting the intention behind giving yourself time instead of it makes your mind more chaotic because you're already in this rapid space already.

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You're not even allowing the space for yourself in any way shape or form living your life for other people, like you said.

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Yeah. Like, and so that's like the number one thing that I hear that and you know, stress is a part of life. You know, I have had so many people say to me, I'm getting pressure from every which way.

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The reality is no one's going to come along and remove stress or pressure from your life. Like nobody is. So the best position that you have is to how do I equip myself to be able to better deal with that.

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So it all starts with with you with with taking care of your vessel and your mind. So you can deal with it. Like, stop with the dream that like one day when I don't have stress.

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You're always going to have it. So you so it's just learning how to dance with it learning how, okay, so if I nourish myself and take care of myself then maybe I won't be so bothered.

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Maybe I won't be so irritated when the boss does this or when my sister in law does that like being more in control and empowered and feeling good is what you really should be focusing on so you can deal with the stress.

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And again, setting that up for yourself on a daily basis instead of waiting for those moments.

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And being reactive like that's no place to to deal with things effectively.

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Totally. So I feel like I feel most people want like you were saying like to cross this like magical threshold that they're going to reach this place of like, oh, I'm totally peaceful.

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I've figured it out. And like total neutrality compared to and it doesn't a little bit make sense but compared to it being burnout resilience burnout resilience.

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Yeah. So what is the ultimate goal through your work like what would a person's life that has figured this out look like balanced.

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Okay, like, like, I've had so many of my clients say to me, nothing has changed in my external world. The only thing that has changed is my perspective and my practices and what I do for me.

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I feel like I'm not as powerful because what that says is I am no longer going to wait around for something out there to change before I feel good.

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Yes.

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Right. So when we can shift people's perspectives and give them strategies to help themselves physically feel good mentally feel good. They are less bothered by something that was once debilitating and just robbed them of their joy.

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And that boundaries plays a really big role here. Huge. Huge. Oh, we talk about boundaries a lot. Okay, yeah, because that's like, that's mostly what I'm hearing is that without that, you're going to fall victim to your day and to the other people around you and you have to be able to build that confidence in

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order to set the boundaries otherwise you're not going to be able to do this. It's like a multi step process, pretty much.

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Totally. Totally. And, and you know, honestly, if I'm to get really real with you, boundaries are the ultimate expression of self love.

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Yeah.

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Do you want to preserve your well being? Then unfortunately, you're going to have to put some boundaries in place.

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Yeah, absolutely.

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Yeah.

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Absolutely.

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You're the one that can do that for you.

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And I don't think that they have to be a terrifying thing, even though they feel terrifying, but I think there's a way you say everything. You don't have to stop this. I don't like you. Don't talk to me.

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Like it doesn't have to be this aggressive thing. It can be in a place of self love. And I feel like when you say it from that space, like when you say it from a love for yourself, therefore in a loving way, people don't take it like you're being a jerk.

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They just are like, okay, like anytime I've ever said boundaries, nobody's ever been like, you suck for doing that.

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Yeah.

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Absolutely.

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Okay, so I kind of want to switch gears into more of your own personal journey from your mental health and just your success to where you are now.

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What do you think is the biggest factor in your decision to use your adversity to your advantage to help other people instead of allowing it to kind of cripple you and have this negative effect on who you are today?

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You know, and that's a very, it's a very great question. And it's, it's a little complicated, I will say, like, you know, for the longest time, I, I viewed mental illness as something over there that my mom had that I, I basically like was one of her caregivers growing up.

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I didn't have a choice in that. And I never really realized what it was like to struggle like she did. Now I was never diagnosed with bipolar, but I was diagnosed with depression and having to navigate life with, with depression.

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You don't want to get out of bed. You don't really want to function. You just want to pull the covers up over your head and forget about the day, you know, I think for me when I found, when I got to the other side of that depression, I realized there's just got to be so many people who don't want to get out of bed.

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There's just so many people who don't recognize that there are things that they can be doing to, to almost avoid that, that darkness.

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And while I'm not a mental health professional, I do know the strategies that I practice myself have kept me out of depression since.

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So for me, it's like, how do I pay it forward. After realizing and witnessing my mom suffering and my own suffering, like, how do I impact more people's lives and share with them everything I've learned because when I was dealing with depression, yes, I was in clinical care and I got a lot of wisdom.

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I have an amazing therapist learned a lot from him. Prior to that, I'd done a lot of self discovery work, I did a lot of landmark and Tony Robbins and I learned a lot about mindset. And so I have a lot to share and a lot to say, and a lot of lived experience and my whole goal was like,

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well, why are we talking about mental illness, why are we not talking about what we can do to get ahead of that, you know, and preserve emotional well being. So fundamentally, I just want to be part of the solution.

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I didn't want to be. Yeah, advocacy for mental health is important and that's how I started my journey, talking about mental illness, but ultimately for me, it's, it's always been how do I impact as many lives possible and and suffering and preserve, help people

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preserve their joy because you'd be amazed how many people come to me and they don't have joy. And that saddens me to no end, that people are living their lives with no joy. I'm like that doesn't work for me so I, I sort of want to make it my business to make to make my imprint on the world with my work.

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So much of the time I feel like we negatively blame, quote unquote what's wrong with us on our adversities. What steps do you feel like people should be taking in order to shift that perspective.

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Yeah, I think you know, honestly, every single, it goes back to the statement I made before, but I heard from the big man Tony Robbins repeatedly saying that life is either happening for you or to you, it's that perspective that you choose that makes all the difference you can live in a victim mentality, or

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right. So I think that if I was to look back on all the adversity and even my mom, even living with someone with bipolar disorder who is mentally physically and emotionally abusive to me.

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I am grateful for that I would never be doing the work I'm doing adversity and challenge positions us to show up in a different way and to be a bigger contribution in the world.

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It shapes us, you know, and even, even the most challenging scenarios there's something for us to learn and hopefully share with someone else so that their road is a little less heavy.

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Right. Absolutely. You mentioned your mom who's been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. From what I understand that's caused a lot of unpredictability in your life. Is that correct.

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How do you suggest people best address or respond or handle the unpredictability of life's events on a daily basis, or if a major event happens, something along those lines how do you suggest people best handle the unpredictability.

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I think when we resist what is we create we do nothing but create our own upset so it's maybe asking yourself what is this here to teach me what is this here to teach me. Why is this happening.

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How is this going to serve me and have me show up a better version of me. I mean at the end of the day like all of these experiences shape us. So, you know the moment that you take this on this this like, you know, victim or, you know why me instead of being curious as to, I wonder why this is

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coming up for me what is there for me to get how am I how am I supposed to learn from this. Trying to come at things with more curiosity than disagreement. That can be a huge difference because when we're too busy disagreeing with what's happening, then there's no opportunity to be curious about why it's happening.

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Yeah, absolutely. That's so true. You're spending too much time fighting it just accepting it as it is and learning to work with it. Exactly. Yeah.

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What is your interpretation of hardships and obstacles telling you that you are on the right path, compared to them telling you that you're on the wrong path and trying to push you in the right direction.

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So, it's so funny. I mean, no, it's a good question. It's probably a question that a lot of people would want to know the answer to and so here's the thing.

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Only you know that answer. Only you know that answer. I can't. I mean, it's so wild how as a society we have been groomed to find answers externally to ourselves when we hold so many of those very answers within us, but we are too busy being busy and too consumed with

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the voice to hear what our inner voice would want us to hear. Like I literally tell people when they come to me and say Michelle, what do I do? Sit in meditation, ask your higher self, what is the next best step?

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Yeah.

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I don't know that answer. I don't know that answer. I'm here to remind you, your higher self is sitting there waiting and going, hey, hey, I can help you out, but you're too busy thinking I'm going to go read that book and watch this podcast and go watch this documentary and go talk to 15 other people.

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Like no, like just how about just getting quiet and getting connected to yourself and your higher self and getting the answer that you need that is already right in front of you.

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I think that almost diving so heavily into self improvement for me personally had more of a negative effect that it's like I was pounding all of this knowledge into my head and wondering why I couldn't stick through with it until the day that I die and it's like it eventually fades because it's not something that comes naturally from you.

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But when it comes from that natural place, those are the times that you're like, oh, like I understand. That's what that means. And something clicks inside of you, but it's when you get quiet or meditate or ask your higher self.

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That's when it shows up. Yeah, totally.

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So you spoke in your Ted talk about that it was a brief mention that you said you used to play it safe and not speak your mind out of fear that you would cause an uproar or that what you said would it make a difference.

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So what do you do to get yourself to leave that safety zone and speak your mind.

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The people pleasing part.

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You know, it's so funny, Sarah that you're like raising this because I just started to take a deep look into attachment styles and people pleasing is an attachment. People pleasing is a characteristic of

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people who struggle with I think it's attached anxious attachment. Okay, so that was me. And I'm still trying to figure out the whole anxious attachment versus avoidant attachment. Like I'm still like going down that rabbit hole right now but

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yeah I mean people pleasing is and I see it like it's almost like these little mirrors show up when I get to coach people because I'm like oh my god you're like you're like me 10 years ago like oh my god that was me I was a people pleaser, but like people pleasing is the the road of less resistance.

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Yes. Right we think I can deal with that snow.

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I'm gonna pick my fight right how many times we said I'm gonna pick my fight I am not going to rock the boat. Oh my god yes. And you're compromising you and your truth and who you are so like for me it's it's a it's a it's black and white am I honoring myself and my not

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honoring myself by people pleasing you know like if I forego anything for me to please someone else then there's definitely an opportunity for me to look at why I'm not loving myself. Oh my god that was a powerful statement I like that a lot that's so true and being able to ask

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yourself that in every single scenario that you feel yourself starting to lean more into your people pleasing tendencies and say okay all right is this serving me yes or no and then being able to make the decision from there.

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And here's the deal Sarah like I said to you before like I'm 51 years old and I'm still on this path and journey and discovery like I still I, I know I have opportunities to elevate my own self love.

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I never thought I would still be talking about this at my age but like it's still very real and I would I would even assert that a lot of, you know, other women all ages still struggle with this.

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This whole conversation but I think we just we do ourselves a disservice when we just you know placate to people we have to recognize and catch ourselves and be curious as to why we're acting certain ways and what we're doing.

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Absolutely, I agree. Would you still continue to do yourself a people pleaser. No, I'm more aware of it. I find I'm more conscious of the different, like the journey of self love that I'm on that I'm trying to like really unpack and enhance.

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But I don't think that I am as much of a people pleaser as I've been in the past I'm very assertive and very. I'm very clear. If it doesn't feel good if energetically it, it, it doesn't vibe with me, I don't want a part of it.

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It doesn't, it doesn't serve me like for example like I used to be part of a group of people where three quarters of the people in the group didn't feel good to be around. I would leave and feel like I just don't really want to be around that energy, you know, and so people pleasing would be I still hung out for the like the two people that I like in that

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group. That would be pleasing. I no longer do that. I say if I if you want to have a relationship with me one on one I'm totally cool with that. I just don't want to put myself in that circumstance, because it doesn't feel good.

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So I'm no longer going to people please and yeah I know you might miss me and want me as part of the group. It doesn't work for me anymore so that's standing up and honoring what I know for me.

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I'm not going to encourage and I think that's a big thing is that coming back to the boundaries coming back to doing what's best for yourself is that simple but it's not easy and it does take the building of confidence and the building of courage to come up with those things.

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So again it's this multi level thing that you're working on over time pretty much. There's so many things that go into it.

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So last question for you. In all of your experience with all of your knowledge. What is the most important thing that you feel like you have learned. What is a message that you would want every single person to know.

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Oh, wow.

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I think, you know, that life doesn't have to be hard and life doesn't have to be void of joy.

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I think, you know, we went through a lot with coven we came out of coven we survived coven we watched people around us lose so much including throw, you know people we love lost our life.

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And I think we learned how to be really good at surviving and just getting through it, that we've lost our, our right to be joy to have joy to experience joy every day that we that we're settling and I and I really, I really invite people to ask

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themselves if they are settling, because I think that everyone deserves to feel an experience joy, whatever that means for them, but but don't rob yourself of that.

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Absolutely. Where can people find you.

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Yeah, so follow my resilience tips on tick tock resilience coach Michelle, or you can follow me on LinkedIn Michelle E Dickinson on LinkedIn.

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Awesome. Thank you so much for being here. I so much appreciate it. You've given so many quotable moments, and it's been a really powerful message and I really appreciate you.

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Oh, you're so welcome. Thanks for having me.