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Welcome to another Questions and Answers episode, where I answer questions on a variety of topics that you asked in the comments.

Today, I pull back the curtain on some of the exciting stuff that happens at our in-person group training that we hold three times a year. Also, from solving problems to dealing with feelings of worthlessness and many other topics, I answer some powerful questions that you’ve sent in recently.

If you would like to get your questions featured on the show, please leave them in the comments of this post or in the comments of any upcoming Q & A episode posts.

What you will discover

  • Why I don’t coach people 1 on 1 any longer.
  • The topics of our upcoming free webinars and how to sign up for them.
  • What you can expect from going through our training.
  • How to solve “problems.”
  • How to take other people’s feedback.
  • What it means to achieve acceptance.
  • How to deal with feelings of worthlessness.
  • And much, much more!

Featured on the show

Episode Transcript

Welcome to The Life Coach School Podcast where it's all about real clients, real problems, and real coaching. Now, your host master coach instructor, Brooke Castillo.

Oh, my goodness! How are you guys doing? What is happening? I'm so happy that we're all here together. I'm picturing you all in your cars, and walking, and running. I know that I'm thinking about one of my students Kari, who makers her kids listen to me. Hi kids. Oh my gosh, it's so fun to be here.

Here's the deal. I am doing a Q and A. I'm going to answer a bunch of your questions. You guys have so many questions. I love them. If you want to ask me a question, put them in the comments at The Life Coach School.

For each episode, you can to thelifecoachschool.com forward slash the episode number. This one would be 66. If you have a question for me, go to the thelifecoachschool.com/66 and in the comments write me your question. I will answer it. I'm going to answer a bunch of questions in this episode. I am thrilled to start with the first one, which is actually a combination of many, many questions that I get all the time about my training.

First of all I get a lot of questions about how people can coach with me one-on-one. I do not do anymore coaching one-on-one. I literally do not have time to coach people one-on-one, and it's not the best way for me to help people. I'm able to work with large groups and get much more effective result and effective teaching by working in large groups. I have found that in-person group teaching for an extended period of time is the most powerful gift I have to give the world. That is how I show up and that's what I offer you. I do these podcasts for you, which is to large groups, thousands of you who listen to me, and talk to me, and write back to me. I love that it's a 2-way communication.

Now, if you listen to this regularly and you haven't done a review for me. Listen, I know it's a pain but if you would go to the thelifecoachschool.com/66, we show you in the note how to do a review. I would really appreciate it if you would take 10 minutes of your time and do that for me because I don't ask you all for any money. I don't ask you all for anything. I keep doing this. It's a Saturday. I'm like rocking this out for you guys. You'll get it on a different day but all I ask from you is that you do a review for me because it increases my reach. The more reviews I get on iTunes, the more reach I get, the more people I can reach. The better the whole podcast does.

What I want to talk to you about is the training that I do offer. I offer a lot of free trainings. I do a public coaching call for free once a month. I do webinars for free so make sure you're on my list. Go to thelifecoachschool.com. If you're on my list you'll be warned. You'll be let know when I'm having a webinar. I have a lot of webinars coming up. I'm going to do webinar on self-coaching. I'm going to do a webinar on how to coach yourself, how to coach others, and I'm going to do one on how to build your business if you are a life coach. Make sure you're on my list so you can get signed up for those. I do have a blog that has tons of free resources on it as well. I do a lot of stuff for free.

Then I offer, 3 times a year, I offer an in-person coaching experience. It's 6 to 8 days, you come to California and you completely change your life. One of the students I just had, her name was Diane, absolutely loved having her in class. She raised her hand a lot, talked about her experience a lot, and because of that she got a lot out of the course. She came up to me at the end and she said, "I just really want you to know that people say that programs change their life. They say life-changing program. I think it's overused. I really want you to know that this program, this 8 days has completely changed my life." What's amazing about it is that I know that it did because I saw her change before my eyes. I saw her opinion of herself and how she was approaching her life change from the way she changed her thinking.

Now, a lot of people listen to the podcast and write me that they've changed their lives just listening to the podcast. There is nothing like being in person and being coached directly by me, and seeing other people coached directly by me, and having that community, and practicing all of these tools during the training.

One of the things that happens during the 8 days is you spend all the time with me in class which is very powerful. Then, you go off with the people that you meet in class because you're all staying there. It's kind of like a campus. It's like camp. Did you ever go to camp when you were a kid? Then you go off.

One of the guys that came, Jeremy, loved Jeremy. First of all, I love it when a guy comes because most of my marketing is to women. When guys come I'm always so excited. Jeremy is a young personal trainer, amazing coach, and just an amazing person. I really, genuinely watched him change before my eyes. I feel like he really took everything that I taught him and applied it. One of the things he said was, "Hey, we're in class with you and we learned a lot. Then, we spent 3 hours talking about it and applying it, and practicing it after the class is over." He goes on, "That's what's so powerful about it." So, so, so exciting.

I want to talk to you just a little bit about what the training involves just because you guys sent me so many questions about it. I know that a lot of you who listened to the podcast are kind of on the fence as to whether you should come to a training or not.

First of all, it doesn't matter where you live in the world. A lot of people say, "Oh, I can't come because I live across the country. I can't come because I live in ..." Wherever you live in Europe. Wherever you happen to live you can get on the plane and come. Lots of people do come from across the pond as they say. Some people like CJ I told you about, drove across the country. You can fly here. Okay? It doesn't matter where you live. We love everyone.

It doesn't matter if you're a guy. I'm totally stoked if you're a guy and you want to come. We've had a couple of guys in each one and they've loved it. It doesn't matter if you don't think you have your life together enough. Every single person who comes is afraid to come because of their weight or they're afraid to come because they don't have an education that they think they want to have before they come. They don't want to come because they think their life is a mess. Those are all reasons to come, not reasons not to come. The people that were worried about that, and we talked about it at the trainings said, "Yes. I'm so glad I came because the very reason that I didn't want to come is the reason that I'm so glad I did come, because I got so much help with that."

Now just so you know, the training is 6 days if you want a life coach certification. Eight days if you want a double certification with weight coach training. We had 24 people do the weight coach training this time. Most people did it and it was really powerful and really awesome. It's 2 full days of just talking about eating, and exercise, and feelings, and emotional eating, and thoughts around food, and body image, and weight. Really, powerful, awesome discussions there. A lot of people shared their personal experiences about how they struggle with losing weight and why they think that is. A lot of hope and excitement moving forward.

Once you do the 8 days, then after that you get a 90-day practicum where you're hooked up with a master coach. We put you in a group with people from the in-person training and you practice coaching. We give you clients to coach to practice coaching on. People that want free coaching. If you are someone listening to the podcast and you would like to be part of that experience where you'd like to get free coaching from somebody who has trained to be a coach, please email Melodee, M-E-L-O-D-E-E at thelifecoachschool.com and let her know you want free coaching. We'll hook you up with one of our coaches in training. We have a lot of people who have really powerful experiences with getting some free coaching.

That's a 90-day experience where you practice coaching. You get to make lots of mistakes. You get to really feel like you're getting a lot of experience. Now, you do get a lot of experience at the in-person training because we do a lot of practicum there. Once you get home, we want you to continue to practice. We give you lots of opportunities to do that very easily by giving you the clients to coach and teaching you how to record the session. You can listen to yourself coach and get feedback from your peers and also from a master coach. You also go through the certification process with the master coach. She helps you through that whole process. Certification is no extra charge. It's all included.

Once that 90 days is up and you are certified, then you go into a 6-month business-building program. I want to be really clear. Our business-building program is not a bunch of videos where we teach you how to build your business. We actually hook you up with a business coach who does it with you. She's fully trained in building websites. She knows all the technology. She will do anything that you don't know how to do. She will do it for you. She's like a super VA assistant that can get you up and running and start getting new clients. One of the big things that I kept hearing from my students was that they felt like they knew how to coach but they can't figure out how to get their website up and get clients. A lot of people were giving up their coaching practices because they couldn't do the business end of it. What I decided to ask myself is what would be my student's dream come true? Their dream come true is to have us do it with them. Hold their hand, take them through the process.

We can't do it for you. I did try and do that as well. I tried to do it for my students but it's impossible for me to have your voice and do it for you. Now, we do it with you. Everybody is absolutely loving that. There saying, "It's exactly what I needed. I needed someone to help me figure out how to put that up in on my site. How to write it. How to do the auto-responders." Yes, we do it for you. It's all included in your tuition when you come to the Life Coach School. By the end of that program, you have learned how to coach. You've learned all the material. You've practiced doing it. You feel pretty seasoned and you have your business up and running.

You are welcome. That is the exact training I would have like to have when I first became a coach. That is what I'm now providing to you. There is no other coaching program that does anything close to that. I'm trying to carve out my own little niche. My own little school that is really in its own class, in a real luxurious experience for everyone who goes through it. That's kind of the overview of the training. Like I said we just got them doing it. It was amazing.

I want to tell you a little bit about some of the people that came to the training so you can recognize. Wait, is this me? Am I this person? I'm looking at the list of the people that were there. One of things that I love was I asked at the end of the training for my student's to explain the model. How would you explain the model? The self-coaching model to a client if you were going to teach it to him. One of the students Amy, drop-dead gorgeous Amy, loved having her in class. One of the things she said that was so awesome was, "I would just tell them it's the magical solution to anything." I love that because it really is. Amy really came to the course, and really did her work, and showed up, and was willing to be very vulnerable. Everybody in the class was really willing to be vulnerable. That's how we do our best work. I think sometimes the model does feel like magic. I loved it that she had said that.

Another student that we had in the class that I absolutely enjoy and I don't know what the deal was with this class. Everybody was just like glowing. Whenever I think about Barb, I just look at her and she was just amazing, and glowing, and happy; loved having her there. Again, she was really willing to do the work and show up. What an exceptional, amazing coach. One of the things that she really brought to the group is so many people in the group had money issues. So many of our population in the world have money issues and believing in our ability to make money doing something that we love. Barb really doesn't have money issues. That's not her area of struggle. She was really able to offer such a wonderful perspective on believing that money is easy and earning money is easy. That's not really the difficult part. I really had appreciated that she brought her thoughts about that and really was willing to share in such an honest way. Hi, Barb.

Cass came to the training. What I loved about her was just her really bold, confident style of coaching and her willingness to ask questions. A lot times during the training I'll say, "Hey, does anyone want to volunteer to coach? Does anyone want to try this?" She was always there and always willing to do it. I always say when our students are learning how to coach that it's very difficult to do any harm when you're learning how to coach. Everyone's like afraid, "Oh my gosh, I don't want to do any harm. I don't want to say the wrong thing." I would say, "When you're holding the space" and I teach my students how to hold the space from a place of love with your client, "it's almost impossible to do any harm." You're asking questions about someone's mind and that inquiry is always a really positive, wonderful, exercise, and awareness. I love it when students are really willing to try out different things and really willing to coach in a group. Cass was always willing to do that and really try everything out. I loved, loved, loved, working with her and having her there.

Same with CC. I seemed to call on her a lot and asked her to coach. Sometimes she was totally ready to do it. In other times she wasn't, and she still like totally jumped in and went for it. I loved having her in class and I loved her smile. It's like we're all the same. This is what I think is so cool about these classes. Were all the same and that we're all there because we genuinely have an interest in coaching. We genuinely have an interest in self-improvement. Yet, we're all so different. We may not be friends otherwise. I'm thinking about would I have ever crossed paths with CC. Would we have ever been in the same circles? Totally different careers, totally different life's different places and yet, here we are like sharing this most magical experience together and how often I thought about her since the training and during the training. I love that experience of having so many different people meeting each other too that may not normally have ever met or been friends. We have this common experience. I absolute love that.

I'm going to go ahead and jump into some other questions that you guys have posted on the comments. Then I'm going to revisit some of the other things that we did in the training and offer you some insight there. Let's start here with Naz. Hoping I'm pronouncing that right, N-A-Z, Naz. Okay. “Hi Brooke. I've been listening to you for a while now. Saved all your episodes in my phone, love, love, love your work. I have a question. I live in a country with many political problems that got us to war. People are angry, worried, and full of hate. I chose not to involve in that because I can't control it. I stopped watching the news, trying hard to acknowledge all the parties and understand them. However, when the bombings starts and I'm afraid of my life and my family's life, it's hard not to be angry and lose optimism. How can I change my thoughts to serve me?” Now, I feel ignorant not knowing what's happening. The news only depresses me. Naz, from Yemen.

Okay. Here's what I want to offer you and this is a really a common thing that a lot of my students want to do. They want to do what I call changing the sea. Changing the circumstance. Then they want to do that by avoidance. If there's a person in your life that you feel is causing you pain, then you just don't ever see that person. Or if you feel like food is causing you to feel tempted, then you remove all that food from your house. In your example, you feel like the news is what's creating you to feel hate and want you to feel worried. I shouldn't say that you're feeling hate, you're feeling worried about the people that are hating, and worried about the people that are angry. You said you wanted to just remove the news from your life.

What you're saying is that you want to avoid the circumstance. You want to avoid the reality of what's going on in your country as a way to feel better. What I want to offer is that avoiding the circumstances, avoiding what's true in your life, the reality of what's going on in your country is not necessarily the most powerful way for you to manage your mind. In fact, what I would encourage you to do is to not turn off the news but to notice what you think when you watch the news. The news in and of itself doesn't have the power to create feelings inside of you. It's what you believe and what you think if it's going to create that.

I know that this is like huge and easy for me to say this but it really is something for you to consider. That even when the bombing starts, the reason that you're afraid, the reason that you're feeling afraid, is because of what you're thinking, right? I want you to imagine when the bombing starts, if you start thinking I'm going to die, you're going to feel afraid. If you start thinking I have no control here, you're going to feel helpless, right? I'm not saying that this work wouldn't be incredibly challenging for anybody in it.

Here's the thing. You can't control the bombing. You can't control what's happening in your country, but you can control the way you think about it. When you say that people are angry, and worried, and full of hate it's because of how they're thinking towards each other and how they’re thinking towards their country, right? The same is true for you. A question that I want to ask you is to consider when you know that you can't change what's happening in your country. You can't stop the bombings yourself right now. You can change the way you think about it, and the way you feel about it, and deciding if you want to change the way you think and feel about it.

For example when the bombing starts, you may want to feel afraid. That may feel like a really genuine emotion that you want to experience. One of the things that can be incredibly helpful is to know that you're choosing that feeling on purpose. Notice the thought that's causing it. I don't know what you want to feel. I don't have that experience of bombs in my country right now. You do and you can't control that but you can control the way that you think and feel about it. That is the one thing that you have the most control over. If you choose to be afraid, which may be a very valid emotion for you, then own that you're choosing that. If you choose to be worried, recognize that that is your choice.

There are people that don't feel afraid. There are people that feel at peace. What would they be thinking? How would you be able to wrap your mind around different thoughts. Knowing that you can have different ways of interpreting what's going on in your world will give you all the power back that you're giving away. There's so many ways that you don't have power right now. That you want to make sure you hang on to what you do have power over. That is your mind. I would love to hearing the comment some of the things you come up with. How do you want to feel when that's going on in your country? How do you want to think about it? What do you think would serve you best in those moments? I'd love to hear what you come up with. Thank you so much for the question. Really powerful.

This is Adelaide. She is saying “I'm really enjoying your podcast and I've told my mother about them and she's now listening to them as well. Having clear boundary is something that's important to me. My husband works long hours and is often unavailable both physically and emotionally to me and the kids. We're taking a family vacation with a few other families that we know. My husband has invited a single friend from work to join all of us. I wasn't happy that he was invited because I wanted the environment to be families. I also don't want to compete for my husband's attention. In the end, I have accepted the friend coming. Now, my husband wants his work friend to ride in our car on the trip. The friend has not asked for this, or complained about driving alone, nor has my husband made the offer yet. We're still discussing my husband wanting to make this offer. I feel like I need to protect how I feel about our family time but I'm worried I will come off as bitchy and selfish. I get upset when my husband accuses me of not being inclusive. He is generous with others but sometimes at a detriment to the family. Is this a boundary violation? Or am I just being selfish in trying to control everything?”

Really great question and I love how aware and compassionate you are through the process by the way. Here's the thing. A boundary violation is when somebody comes in to your personal space either emotionally or physically. In this instance, I think you could argue that having someone come in to your car without you wanting them to would be a boundary violation. In this instance, I wouldn't approach it that way because I think that there's another way that you could think about it that would actually be more useful to you. Here's how I would suggest you approach it and let's say how it goes.

Remember that anytime someone does anything it's because of what they think and feel. Now, you might assume that your husband is inviting his friend because he isn't thinking about you when he's thinking, "Oh, I don't really care what my wife thinks. This is all about me." If you were to ask him what are you thinking, you might hear something completely different. Understanding why he's inviting, you said that he's very generous and inclusive, and understanding his thoughts about why he's inviting this person, and why he wants to be in the car, and really hearing out like his whole thought process without any judgment. We call that holding the space like really trying to put yourself in his shoes and understand where his coming from; so you can feel some compassion and understanding. Now, that doesn't mean that you agree to having the person come in the car at all. It just means that you really have a perspective on why they're doing it. Because sometimes we misinterpret it and we think that they're doing it because they don't care about our opinion. Often that is not the case and it puts us on the defensive unnecessarily.

The other thing that I really think is important for you to do is write down all your thoughts about the guy coming in the car. Why you don't want him in the car? What the reasons are and do you think those are good valid reasons and you like those reasons, right? That's what I like to do. Do I like my reason for not wanting this person in the car? Really looking at your own thoughts because here's the truth. Having the guy in the car is the circumstance. How you think about it is going to determine your experience of having him in the car.

For example, if you were thinking, "Oh, the more the merrier. This will be so much fun. I'm so glad we're having lots of people. I want to get to know more about my husband's work and this guy coming. That's going to be fantastic." Then you're going to have one experience, right? If you have the experience with my husband already spent so much more time with these people that he does with me, I really want all of his attention to be focused on me. Do you like that reason? How will that feel if the guy comes in the car and you're thinking that, right? You get to decide how you want to think about it either way.

Then, what I recommend is that you ask your husband, "Hey, could we sit down and kind of share our thoughts with each other? I want to understand your reasoning for why you want to have him in the car. I want you to understand my reasoning for why I don't want to have him in the car." Let's present this kind of as a problem that we're experiencing. All problems are in our minds and then come up with a solution together that serves both of us. Whenever I've done this with my husband, it's always been magic. Instead of focusing only on the problem, we start focusing on the solution in a way that would feel good to both of us.

Understanding more of each other is coming from, I think is a really powerful, intimate experience, right? Instead of it kind of being an argument where you're throwing your thoughts and your reasonings and being defensive. He may be throwing his thoughts and reasonings and being defensive, you're really open to hearing and understanding his perspective. He's really open to understanding your perspective. Then it's kind of like a math problem, you take both perspectives and you say, "Okay. Here's the problem, you have to include all of the algebra that is there. How do we solve this problem including all this numbers?" You come up with that solution together.

I have found really is a powerful way of doing it. Some of you might need to change your thinking about it, and he might need to change his thinking about it. You guys can have aligned thinking. I would love to know how that goes. Really be honest with your thoughts. Make sure they're thoughts you really want to be thinking, and believing, and share them with you husband. Don't have any preconceived notion about how he should think about your thinking. The same goes the other way and see if you guys can look at it as a problem that will be solved. It does absolutely have a solution that is a win-win for everybody involved. Okay? Let me know how that goes. Thank you for the question. I love it.

Next one, JA is the name. “Thank you for The Life Coach School Podcast. I've listened to every episode since its inception and share every episode that has changed my life for the better. Both of my Twitter account and on my Tumblr blogs. Learning about the self-coaching model and the concept of emotional adulthood has been transformative for me. I've one question that has percolated in my mind since the Abraham Hicks episode. How does the scientific method apply when self-coaching myself? I believe that I'm my own authority in my life. I take full responsibility for the decisions that I make and I believe in following my inner guidance system to help me make decisions that are the best for me. However, I've learned in my college career to apply the scientific method which, includes getting outside feedback to validate right from wrong.

For instance, I'm currently in college and I'm exploring careers and major fields of study. I want to make a decision that will be best for me and understand intuitively that I can only best approach my search one step at a time, or a semester at a time. However, the culture feedback that my generation has received is that college is an outdated system in addition to producing overqualified graduates in a saturated market where there is no luck in getting a job. I personally know that the best that I can do is being responsible for me and that the person I become.

At the the same time when it comes to deciding what to study and how to approach my career, I wonder how much apparent facts I have to keep in mind. For instance, STEM and business degree is making more money than humanities are or social science degrees. As I write this comment and question to you, I realized that perhaps the scientific method should only be used to verify circumstances than values. For instance, it may be a statistical circumstance that 1 major, maybe more profitable over another at the time than an article on the PayScale or the Wall Street Journal is published. When do I dismiss what other people's feedback is when making a decision? How should past evidence factor into our decision making? For example, data collecting with a scientific method and how much should we heed the feedback that we get from peers, advisers, about what's the best course of action to take when making a decision? My questions revolves around schooling but I'm certain that it could be applied universally like with individuals in their careers or even with regards to dating and relationships. I'm eager to hear what you have to say about the subject.”

This is such a fantastic question. Thank you JA for posting it. I really appreciate it. Here's what's crazy. Here's when we think about it in terms of schooling. I think it's a really interesting approach. When it comes to gathering evidence, when it comes to proving something true, and we use the scientific method to do that, right? What I find fascinating is that you can use studies to prove the exact same thing true or false. Right? How can there be so many scientific studies proving that we shouldn't eat carbohydrates. So many scientific studies proving that we should, right? It's so powerful.

Here's what's so fascinating to think about. When we believe something, we can go about gathering evidence to prove it true. I have the argument about college with my friends all the time because I have kids that are going into high school. A lot of them are really focused on high school in terms of how they can help their kids to high school so they can get into a good college. I have the argument that kind of like what you're saying that college is outdated. My philosophy is that if you want to be an attorney, if you want to be a doctor, if you want to be a scientist that you should go to college. If you want to be a therapist, that sort of thing. If you don't know what you want to do in your life, going to college just to get a college degree in my opinion is not worth the money. When I went to college, I went to just get a liberal arts degree and got a psychology degree. I haven't gone on to become a therapist and I literally don't use any of the psychology that I used in college in my practice now, which I think is so funny.

A lot of people like that I have a psychology degree. I don't think that it would determine whether I did well in my business or not. That being said, I think you can make an argument. A really, convincing, compelling argument for college based on a lot of scientific research and a lot of scientific studies. I think you can make a very compelling argument against college based on a lot of research and a lot scientific studies, right? That's what I think is the most fascinating thing and that's how our brains are wired. They're wired to prove our own thoughts true. I think that we can prove anything true. If you are trying to figure out what to do for a career, I think you could say I want to be, I don't think you mentioned in here what you wanted to be. Let's say that you wanted to get a PhD because you're trying to figure out about college. I think you could go and prove that having a PhD would be the absolute best thing you could possibly do. If you really believed it, I think that you would go on and create an amazing career and an amazing life for yourself as a doctorate.

I think you could also argue that college isn't necessary and not get any more degrees and prove that true. That you could have this amazing awesome life without having any formal education. When you ask me how much should I take people's feedback and the consideration, it's an interesting question, right? Because you're going to take it into consideration based on what you believe. Even the feedback I'm giving you, if you really want to go to college, you could use this as evidence that you should. If you really don't want to go to college, you could use this podcast as evidence that you shouldn't.

Taking other people's feedback is going to be based on what it is you genuinely believe. You could take someone's feedback and you could completely discredit them. Or you could take someone's feedback and apply it to your life. I think this is fantastic news because I genuinely believe that we can create the life that we are meant to create based on what we believe. What we believe and what we want to do is so much more important than what other people tell us as outdated, or what other people tell us we should do, or what other people tell us is a good career that we should do, and that will make us the most money. I think that we can make that reality for ourselves.

You said you were thinking about it since the Abraham Hicks episode. I kind of laugh about that because I think if Esther Hicks had asked for feedback before she went into that business…where if she would have said, "Hey, what do you think about me traveling across the country and conveying what I say are spirits to other people. Do you think I can make a successful career of doing that?" I think that the answer probably would have been an astounding no. Her college adviser probably would have advised her against to any that she has this amazing very lucrative, very wonderful life that she has created for herself based on that. That would be my take on that and what I want to offer to you is if you allowed yourself to make a decision simply based on what you genuinely want to do, could you find another evidence to prove it true? Could you use the scientific method to format hypothesis and prove it true? What I would say is "Absolutely, yes you can."

You don't have to rely on anything externally to give you a solid reason to do anything. You can do genuinely anything you want to do simply because you want to do it. No matter what anyone else says to you, you can prove it true. I would say use that as your indicator of what you want to do with your life and not anybody else's feedback.

Okay. Yvonne says, "Brooke, love everything about what you offer. So much of it resonates with me. Awhile back, you did a podcast on what it means to feel your feelings. Awesome and so helpful. In this podcast you and Suyin talk a lot about acceptance. My question is, what does it mean to feel acceptance? How do you know you've accepted your body or weight? How do you know that you have achieved acceptance?”

What a fantastic question, Yvonne. I love it. Because you will feel it, right? Rejection feels very different than acceptance. A lot of the work that I was doing with, even my students that I've been talking about in this episode that I've been working with in the course. One of the things that we talked a lot about was not judging ourselves when we become aware. A lot of the work that I do is about increasing our awareness about our opinions of our self, about what we're thinking. Immediately what many of my students want to do is then judge themselves for what they're thinking.

I'm thinking of one of my students, Sheryl, and we were doing some work together. She was having a lot of judgments about her son. I can totally relate to it like teenage children or even older than that like not helping around the house and not contributing in ways that we think they should. Inadvertently, not being aware of how much judgment we have and more importantly, that judgment towards ourselves, right? That when we discover that we're having these thoughts, then we start judging ourselves for having this thought.

One of the things that I taught is that when you discover that you have negative thoughts towards other people or towards yourself, first of all they are always well intended like the example with Sheryl. It's like she's trying to keep peace in her house and she wants to make sure everyone's happy. She wants to make sure she's happy. She wants to make sure her son is happy. Even though the way that she's going about it is doing the opposite, it's creating disconnection and unhappiness. We need to accept that we're doing that from a place that's well intended. When we reject ourselves, when we make those discoveries, we have no authority to be able to change.

You know when you've accepted something about yourself when you feel that acceptance in your body. When you feel that you're not rejecting. When you're not judging yourself. That's when you know that you have arrived at a place of acceptance. Look into your mind and see am I having accepting thoughts towards my body? That's how you know because you'll feel acceptance. If your having rejecting judgmental thoughts, you will know that because you will feel that.

Okay Beki, “I'm dealing with so many feelings of worthlessness. I just got a job. I failed in having my own business twice and I'm happy about that. I'm worried I'm going to commit some act of self-sabotage. I'm heart broken after being completely rejected by my son's father who already found a new girlfriend, and I'm overeating. Since I haven't been working, I've been isolated, alone on my couch for most of my time the last few months. I'm in a bad way. Today, I found your podcast and I feel hopeful for the first time in a long time. I listened to the first 2 episodes. I can see where my feelings of worthlessness are driving my actions. Thank you so much. This is the first time anything has really made sense to me. Thank you so much. I think you just helped jump start what I need to completely change my life.”

Beki, here's what I want to offer you. Your feelings of worthlessness are not coming from your husband having a new girlfriend. Your feelings of worthlessness are not coming because you closed your businesses. Your feelings of worthlessness are coming from your thoughts that you're having right now. Here is the best news. You have 100% control over those thoughts. You can't control whether your ex-husband loves you or not. You can't control whether he has a new girlfriend or not. You can't control the fact that you've already closed those businesses but you can control what you make it mean. You can control how you're going to think about yourself. That is the best news I can give you.

What I recommend you do is write down all the thoughts you're having about yourself. What you're making it mean? All the things your making it mean because if you continue to have those thoughts, then you will self-sabotage because you will have to prove the I-am-not-worthy thought true. You will do that. Even though it's well intended, you will do it in a completely illogical way to prove your brain true. Get a hold of those thoughts, have a look at them. Remind yourself those thoughts are optional. You do not have to think them.

I want to tell you briefly about a couple more people that came to the training because I love them. Sara came to the training and I love Sara. She's a physician and she is just an amazingly intelligent, and talented, and gorgeous woman. I think so many people would look at Sara and just think, "Oh my gosh! She is the perfect life. She's beautiful. She's thin. She's a doctor. She's awesome." Of course she is, right? So interesting to see that she shares so many of the thoughts that all of us do about ourselves and those self-doubting thoughts. When you look at her, you think what do you mean? You shouldn't be thinking anything about your ability to do what you love and be able to make money at it. So many people come to me and think that like, "Yeah, I can make money doing something I hate doing."

I've had a couple of people from the previous trainings. I had a law professor who knew that she could make money based on her very impressive career and her very impressive degree and status. Yet, she was miserable doing it and could I really make the same amount of money doing something I absolutely love? I think a lot of people look at my life and they believe that I'm doing that because I am. They don't think it's possible for them. For me, the example that I use is picturing a little kid on a bike that doesn't believe that they're ever going to learn how to ride that bike. There's so like "I just don't know if I'm going to be able to do it. I just don't think I can learn how to ride a bike like my big brother." I never doubt that they can.

When I think about Sara, that's what I think about. She's not sure that she'll be able to really, absolutely make more money than she did in her other career as a doctor. Will she be able to make even more money being a life coach? I absolutely have no doubt. There is no doubt in my mind that she will be able to make twice as much as she did. I never stopped believing in her. Even though all of us have doubts about ourselves. It's really interesting because I look at my own doubts in my own life, and I see where I struggle. When I think about someone else, someone like, "Oh my gosh! It's so silly those thoughts they're having about themselves." Then I know it's the same thing with me. It's so silly these thoughts that I have about doubting myself. I do think it's part of the process as we grow. As we move on in our lives to that next level. Are we able to overcome those doubts to take ourselves to even higher heights?

I love the idea of blowing our own damn minds. I am really looking forward to that day when I have that conversation with Sara and she says to me, "Holy cow! We totally were right." We can do whatever we want and really blow our own damn minds. So happy to have had her in class. I can't wait to tell you more in the next episode about some of the other students that I had in class. The things that they’re doing, and the things that they're offering, and the things that they’re creating. Totally, wonderfully, fantastical.

Hey, that's it for now. If there's a question that you have put on to my comments and I haven't answered it yet, look forward to seeing it in the coming up Q and A episode. Have an amazing wonderful week. I love you guys. Talk to you next week. Ba-bye.

Thank you for listening to the Life Coach School Podcast. It would be incredibly awesome if you would take a moment to write a quick review on iTunes. For any questions, comments, or coaching issues you would like to hear on the show, please visit us at www.thelifecoachschool.com.

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