Rebel Therapist
Rebel Therapist is about therapists and healers doing their own trauma healing. Annie Schuessler-Zam, trauma healer, interviews each guest about a time in their own life when they engaged in their own healing in a big way.
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A Profound Group Psilocybin Ceremony | Cheryl Tien
01/03/2026
A Profound Group Psilocybin Ceremony | Cheryl Tien
My guest today did some significant healing at a psilocybin ceremony at a retreat center in Mexico. She takes us there and explains why she was able to heal in that environment in ways she hadn’t before. You’ll also hear how and why she does psychedelic work as a therapist. Dr. Cheryl Tien, PsyD, is a licensed clinical psychologist who helps individuals navigate grief, identity, and life transitions with a culturally attuned, trauma-informed approach. She specializes in psychedelic integration—supporting clients in making meaning of experiences with medicines like MDMA and psilocybin in a grounded, evidence-based way. Her work centers on safety, ethics, and translating profound experiences into sustainable change in everyday life. Here's some of what we talked about: Deciding to get licensed, and the pros and cons of that as a psychedelic facilitator Advocating for psychedelic medicine accessibility Grieving the loss of a former client to suicide Getting racially assaulted Having fears, visuals and nightmares as a result of stressful events Hitting the limits of talk therapy in her own healing Choosing to attend a psilocybin ceremony retreat in Mexico Why the medicine is 10% of the experience Her internal experience during the ceremony Doing a sweat lodge the following day How she decides when to do a psychedelic journey and what medicine she needs Being “spiritually hopeful” Her advice to people new to psychedelics healing generational trauma Show notes at
/episode/index/show/therapistclubhouse/id/39540675
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Unapologetic Aging With Deb Benfield
12/04/2025
Unapologetic Aging With Deb Benfield
Deb Benfield has helped hundreds of women heal their relationship with food, eating, and their bodies in her 35-year career as a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist. She is a needed expert at the cross section of pro-aging and body liberation. Her new book, Unapologetic Aging, teaches us to navigate anti-aging and diet and wellness culture so we can enjoy our lives. As women enter perimenopause and menopause, we become more vulnerable to risk of disordered eating. This book is an antidote. I got an early copy of this book so I could prep for this interview. I want to get more copies for people I love. As I talk to a few friends about my conversation with Deb, they’ve admitted to me how much they struggle with their body image and how much they need to hear this conversation. This is a personal conversation about Deb’s own journey with her body. Here we go. Here's some of what we talked about: Deb’s journey from struggling with her body image to loving her aging body fully Seeing the harms of diet and “wellness” culture to her clients as a dietician Transitioning away from “body as project” thinking Perimenopause, Menopause and body-trust Why the mainstream messaging about belly fat is misleading Making body liberation her family legacy Show notes at
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IFS Changed My Personality with Alexis Roberson
11/05/2025
IFS Changed My Personality with Alexis Roberson
Before I jump in I want to invite you to a couple of things. If you’ve gone low contact or no contact with a parent or caregiver, this time of year can bring up a lot. I’m hosting a workshop for folks who are estranged from a parent or caregiver and want tools and support in creating your most meaningful and beautiful life. Every time I run this, folks experience belonging and a sense of hope. We’ll meet online on Friday, December 5th from 1pm to 4pm Pacific. go to to register. No one will be turned away because of money. And for everyone, I’m hosting a year-end ritual to clear space in your life for what isn’t needed for the new year and setting intentions and creating more space for what matters to you. We’ll reflect on the year you’ve had and tap into the energy and values you want to make your next moves from. If you like internal family systems and parts work, you’ll probably resonate with this. You’ll have lots of time while we’re together to reflect and feel into what’s next. If you’ve joined me in the past for this, you’ll notice this one will be less productivity oriented and more about anchoring into yourself. We’ll gather online on Thursday, December 11th from 2 to 3:30 Pacific. This is a free gathering. Go to to register and get the link. My guest today went through a huge personal transformation when she learned Internal Family Systems, or IFS. For example, the ways that she was incredibly productive and excelled at pretty much everything? For the first time in her life, that was not as celebrated. In fact it was something she was encouraged to stop doing. Alexis Roberson, licensed family therapist, provides psychotherapy and virtual parenting groups for families navigating the complexities of neurodivergent caregiving. As an IFS practitioner, she helps parents and children identify with their "parts" and become more of their true, authentic selves. You’ll hear about her own healing and the way her life and work and family continue to evolve in the direction of freedom. Here's some of what we talked about: Finding Internal Family Systems right before COVID lockdown Switching to an IFS therapist as she learned IFS How Alexis’s personality has changed since learning this model Opening up to more not knowing and playfulness in parenting and other relationships Using her body to check in with her parts and release tension throughout the day How she uses somatics in sessions with clients Having 2 autistic kids and the shifts their family made to meet their needs Getting back to prioritizing fun and pleasure Why the chapter she’s in now of getting older is gold Show notes at
/episode/index/show/therapistclubhouse/id/38888125
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Estrangement And Authenticity with Annie Schuessler-Zam
10/06/2025
Estrangement And Authenticity with Annie Schuessler-Zam
This podcast is about therapists and healers doing their own healing work. So now it’s my turn to talk about some of my healing. Sarah Buino, host and creator of the podcast Conversations with a Wounded Healer interviewed me recently, and I’m sharing that conversation with you. I love the questions Sarah asks me and I just love Sarah and I know you will too. We talk about a pivotal psychedelic journey I went on, estrangement, authenticity, and how my own healing led to a recent career pivot. Here's some of what we talked about: My pivotal psychedelic healing journey My personal experience with estrangement and how I also help estranged people Learning about Internal Family Systems What Sarah and Annie both have experienced with unconditional love from our spouses Sarah’s reflections on how Annie has changed and healed more since our conversation in 2021! Show notes at
/episode/index/show/therapistclubhouse/id/38450935
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Finding Somatics And Healing Emotional Neglect With Sonya Brewer
09/07/2025
Finding Somatics And Healing Emotional Neglect With Sonya Brewer
Sonya Brewer is a trauma specialist and relationship expert who specializes in creative life and relationship design for overachieving trauma survivors and their partners. She helps trauma survivors feel more alive, connected and authentic so they can create the lives and relationships they truly want. In this conversation Sonya shares vulnerably about doing her own deep work, including the processes she went through to heal her childhood emotional neglect and other traumas. She also talks about how her own healing has changed her work as a therapist and healer. Here's some of what we talked about: Discovering Breath Work and somatics Finding the right therapist and sticking with her for decades! Becoming a healer and leaving corporate behind Healing and retrieving young parts of herself Understanding and healing from emotional neglect Feeling the help, love and healing of her ancestors The limits of talk therapy in accessing some of our deepest healing Insights on Couples and Complex PTSD (and an upcoming book!) Show notes at
/episode/index/show/therapistclubhouse/id/38067815
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It Wasn’t Only Back Pain: How Helen Beynon Found Somatic Experiencing And IFS
08/09/2025
It Wasn’t Only Back Pain: How Helen Beynon Found Somatic Experiencing And IFS
You’re going to hear some courageous and vulnerable stuff right now. My guest today is a therapist who uses two methods to help her clients heal trauma. Her own healing journey started in an unexpected way. Helen Beynon is a somatic therapist and IFS-informed practitioner. She loves working with folks to transform trauma and build their capacity to navigate a tumultuous world. I met her when she was a teacher in my IFS learning. She’s based in British Columbia. Here's some of what we talked about: How she found Somatic Experiencing as a client Doing deep emotional and physical healing she didn’t expect Her personal experiences that led her to learn both IFS and Somatic Experiencing as a practitioner How she integrates the 2 methods How she now listens to and uses her anger rather than pushing it away Show notes at
/episode/index/show/therapistclubhouse/id/37675075
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Healing Childhood Trauma And Finding Her Super Gay Self with Samantha Fox
07/10/2025
Healing Childhood Trauma And Finding Her Super Gay Self with Samantha Fox
Before I jump in, I want to share a workshop I’ll be running for people who are estranged or distant from their parent or caregiver and are needing support while they work to create a beautiful life and heal. This is a judgment free zone where you’ll be with people who get it, and you’ll learn tools to truly show up for yourself. Join me on Friday, August 1st. Go to to learn more and sign up. I can’t wait to see you. On to today’s interview! Today’s guest shares deeply and vulnerably how she’s done her own healing through big stuff, including childhood sexual abuse, realizing she’s a lesbian while married to a man, and the death of her father. You’ll hear about the beautiful process she guides people through, why she took a sabbatical recently, and why she’s working with a shaman now. Meet Samantha Fox. As a sexuality coach, she works with women around the world to support them as they discover that they are not as straight as they might have thought. She’s developed an experiential method called Unbox Your Sexuality that creates a monumental transformation. She’s also an LMFT in New York. Here's some of what we talked about: How therapy failed her at one point Healing from childhood trauma Uncovering her lesbian sexuality Becoming a guide for other women in their coming out journeys Coping and growing in the loss of her father Taking a sabbatical Why she’s working with a Shaman How she changed her work to feel more right for her The power of IFS and why she uses it with her clients Show notes at
/episode/index/show/therapistclubhouse/id/37354725
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How Grief Changed Her Path (IFS, Brainspotting & Energy Healing) with Jaclyn Tyson
06/11/2025
How Grief Changed Her Path (IFS, Brainspotting & Energy Healing) with Jaclyn Tyson
This podcast is changing because my work is changing! I’m still offering business coaching, and you can find out how I help therapists and healers with their businesses at . AND I’ve stepped back into working with clients as a healer. I have been on a HUGE healing journey of my own that started with a guided psychedelic journey in January of 2023. I then received Brainspotting, first from my friend, Alicia Taverner. Hire her if you can. She’s at .* Then I received some parts work. I have gotten so much help from these modalities. They really get to the root of my trauma in a way that nothing else has. I felt this magnetic pull to learn these modalities myself and to start working as a healer again. I work with people who are estranged from a parent or caregiver and other folks who want to do some big healing. I also have a workshop coming up later this summer for people who are estranged from a parent or caregiver and are working to build their most beautiful life. If you’re interested in checking out any of that, find it at . Let’s get to today’s amazing therapist guest who I adore. My favorite kind of practitioner is the kind that wouldn’t ask their client to do anything they don’t do themselves. I’m SO excited to introduce Jaclyn Tyson, a therapist and spiritual companion who helps people reconnect with their inner wisdom through spirituality, creativity, and healing practices. She weaves together approaches like Brainspotting, parts work, energy healing, and expressive arts to support personal and collective transformation. In our conversation, you’ll hear about how she uses these modalities with her clients AND how they’re central to her own growth and healing. Here's some of what we talked about: How Jaclyn processed her grief after her father passed and she knew she needed something beyond the tools she already had Jaclyn’s mentorship with a Shaman How she brings Reiki, Brainspotting and IFS together all at once with her clients The rituals she does before and after sessions Show notes at
/episode/index/show/therapistclubhouse/id/36930035
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A Program For People With Ancestral Ties To The Nazi Regime with Iris Brilliant and Justine Epstein
05/20/2025
A Program For People With Ancestral Ties To The Nazi Regime with Iris Brilliant and Justine Epstein
My 2 guests today created and will co-facilitate The Hour Before Dawn A Program for Inheritors of Wealth with Family Ties to the Nazi Regime who want to take ancestral responsibility and create a more just world. () Iris Brilliant is a money coach based in Berlin, Germany. She guides wealthy people who are confused or conflicted about what to do with their money to create a deeply liberating vision and plan for their wealth. She has recently shaped her career to fight fascism globally. Justine Epstein is a facilitator and mentor for people with inherited wealth who want to examine the histories of their ancestors and money, and take meaningful action to address these legacies. Her approach combines ancestral research, contextual history, political education, wealth redistribution and divestment, with embodied mindfulness, ritual, connection to the natural world, and creative expression. They both come from wealthy families. You’re about to hear how they’ve done intense personal work AND justice work. I’m swooning on that combination and it’s a combination of work I aspire to do. You’ll hear me ask them some challenging questions. You know, the stuff people who have wealth don’t usually talk about in public? They talk about that stuff with a ton of transparency. I think it’s courageous. Here's some of what we talked about: Iris and Justine’s journeys with generational examination and healing around wealth Navigating wealth and relationships Shame, guilt, and transformative healing and action Building their collaborative partnership Creating and facilitating their program: The Hour Before Dawn Addressing the Palestinian genocide Show notes at
/episode/index/show/therapistclubhouse/id/36619985
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Create Content That Builds Your Audience
05/06/2025
Create Content That Builds Your Audience
I’ve been regularly creating content to build and nurture my audience for 10 years now. This strategy has worked really well for me. It’s been a huge part of how I’ve drawn people to my work and built their trust. My content has also helped thousands of people who I’ll never have the pleasure of meeting. AND…creating content week after week can be overwhelming. Daniel Fava had me on his podcast, Private Practice Elevation, and we dug into all of my insights about how to create content that matters. I realized this conversation includes a lot of things I haven’t shared with you, and I asked Daniel if I could release it as a Rebel Therapist episode as well. Daniel Fava is the owner of Private Practice Elevation where his team helps therapist with all things website and SEO. He got into this particular niche because his spouse is a therapist. Here’s some of what we talked about: How to figure out what to create content about (and the questions I go back to every week) Finding your voice by using your voice What to do if you’re overwhelmed What to do if you think you’re annoying people with your emails Creating your content ritual My actual process Show notes at
/episode/index/show/therapistclubhouse/id/36430750
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A Group Process For Ancestral Healing | Judy Hu
04/15/2025
A Group Process For Ancestral Healing | Judy Hu
When you engage in your own healing, how does your work change? Today I’m talking to Judy Hu. They’ve created a group process to alchemize generational trauma, and in this episode she talks all about her own path to healing and finding this way of working. They also guide me through an unexpected and powerful process during the interview. Judy Hu is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor turned Boundary Coach based in Massachusetts. Judy is the author of bestselling book, The Boundary Revolution: Decolonize Your Relationships and Discover a New Path to Joy, which documents the framework Judy developed to guide her clients through their boundary healing. They’re also a Rebel Therapist grad. Here's some of what we talked about: Transitioning from therapist to boundary coach Developing a group process to alchemize ancestral trauma Bringing playfulness and creativity to their groups How a ketamine journey influenced her path Her big life changes and healing Collective healing and group dynamics Decolonizing our work Why the way Judy works now does not cause them to burn out Show notes at
/episode/index/show/therapistclubhouse/id/36029400
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Real Advice About Creating Your Own Program: An Open Coaching Call
03/27/2025
Real Advice About Creating Your Own Program: An Open Coaching Call
Before I share the replay of this open coaching call I want to tell you… Wednesday, April 2nd is the last day to sign up for in 2025. Do you have a sense of what having your own course or program could do for your career? If you’ve been sitting on an idea for a while, I want to invite you to create your program with me. This is the process where you take your incredible strengths as a therapist or healer and you create a signature program so that you can serve more people, make more money, and get your best ideas out of your head and into a unique container you’ll be able to offer over and over. We go through an 11 week process together step by step so that you are actually launching your program during our time together with my support. I ran a free and open coaching call recently for everyone in our audience, including clients and listeners. We had such great questions that I decided to share the recording with you. Here are some of the questions I answered and expanded on: Can I create my first program with minimal tech? How can I carve out time to work on my program when I’ve got a full private practice? I have a few ideas for programs. How can I choose one? Is it best to wait to do CYP until I have a fully formed program idea, or do plenty of people figure it out along the way? How do you support therapists like me who are constantly taking courses and never creating? How far in advance of my course should I start promoting it? I sometimes think “I have no good ideas.” How do I get past this and tap into an offer I feel clear and confident about? How do you support therapists in being visible. I’m worried how my therapy clients might react if I share more of my personal story in a newsletter. With the economy quickly changing, how do we factor that in as we choose which program to create? Show notes at
/episode/index/show/therapistclubhouse/id/35881420
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Creating and Filling A Program About Shame | Tatra De La Rosa
03/18/2025
Creating and Filling A Program About Shame | Tatra De La Rosa
Got shame? When shame shows up, it’s overwhelming and contagious. My guest has created a process to help therapists transform shame with their clients. You’re about to hear how she created her program, how her process works, and how she transformed her own shame in the process of building her business. Tatra De La Rosa is a therapist and educator with a private practice in Northern California where she provides supervision and training to associate therapists, and teaches graduate students on the path to becoming therapists. She’s been working with clients in her private practice to heal shame at its source and is passionate about teaching other therapists how they can learn to do so as well. She’s also a recent grad of Create Your Program. Here's some of what we talked about: Why we get frustrated when we work with shame protectors How shame gets activated in the therapist, a.k.a. “I’m a terrible therapist!” or imposter syndrome Why shame is actually a misunderstanding The and modules of her program and how she teaches it Using a recorded session of her work as well as live group coaching to teach participants the method How she filled her pilot program Show notes at
/episode/index/show/therapistclubhouse/id/35740830
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Returning To Your Program After Time Away | Kate Ahl
03/04/2025
Returning To Your Program After Time Away | Kate Ahl
Sometimes you have to unexpectedly step away from your business. When you return, it’s really helpful to have a program you’ve created that you can dive back into. Having your own program separate from your private practice gives you a way to serve people and make money from anywhere, and you don’t lose that branch of your business, even if you move to a different part of the world. That’s the story of this week’s guest. Kate Ahl is a therapist and coach with over 20 years' experience of working with writers, researchers and academics, in the UK and the US. For many years she was an in-house therapist for faculty and staff at Cambridge University and in her private practice she continues to serve people who live by their brains, struggling with perfectionism, imposter syndrome, and creative block. She’s also a grad of Create Your Program and Rebel Therapist Marketing Intensive. Here's some of what we talked about: Helping people with restless, problem solving minds The challenges and fun parts of working with extremely brainy humans Diving back into her program after months away because of life issues AND a transatlantic move Her feeling of relief that her program was ready for her to pick up and run again Returning to the container and structure she learned in Rebel Therapist programs so she could stay out of overwhelm in her business Dripping curriculum out little by little so that participants don’t get overwhelmed Offering asynchronous as well as live coaching during her program How she’s marketing her program using content and guesting on podcasts Show notes at
/episode/index/show/therapistclubhouse/id/35522930
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Visibility And Vulnerability With José Aleman
02/18/2025
Visibility And Vulnerability With José Aleman
Pivoting to work beyond private practice usually means getting more visible. And getting more visible can bring up a lot of vulnerability for people, especially people who are therapists. Today’s guest is putting himself out there in new ways, and finding that while he grows his audience, he also finds there’s a way it is contributing to his own healing. Jose Aleman is a therapist-turned-coach with over 20 years of experience. As the creator of Loving Your Awkward Self, Jose offers confidence-boosting content tailored to queer, first-generation, and BIPOC individuals, while welcoming all. Passionate about authenticity and safe spaces, Jose is dedicated to helping people embrace their true selves and grow. Here's some of what we talked about: Creating “Loving Your Awkward Self” Reels as a resource to reach people in an accessible way AND to work on his own healing by being seen Working with people who tend to shut down emotionally, particularly BIPoC, first gen and queer folks Creating a group for queer, BIPoC men about increasing confidence Jose’s step-by-step posting process Annie’s advice about repurposing content Honing the skill of grabbing people’s attention quickly (a necessity for social media) How he chooses his topics for posts Annie’s suggestions for growing his audience Show notes at
/episode/index/show/therapistclubhouse/id/35306220
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Create Your Program AND Write Your Book | Dr. Christen Mullane
02/04/2025
Create Your Program AND Write Your Book | Dr. Christen Mullane
Here’s a really cool idea: create a program that helps your write your book. When you create a program you get to take your best ideas, turn them into a clear process, AND help a group of people in real time. You get feedback and make adjustments along the way so that your process gets even better. Then you write your book knowing that you’re writing something that really helps people. Both your program and your book allow you to help more people and get known for your work. That’s what today’s guest, Dr. Christen Mullane has been up to. She’s a clinical psychologist and certified meditation teacher. She is the owner of Ginkgo Leaf Health Services, a psychotherapy practice aimed at providing services for those who have experienced medical stress and trauma. She offers a therapy program called RISE, which specifically focuses on trauma-informed mindfulness within this population. She’s also the author of Medical Stress & Trauma. I’m proud to say that she’s a grad of Create Your Program. Here's some of what we talked about on this week’s podcast episode: The process Christen went through to publish her workbook and create her group program How running her program is different from her therapy sessions How she brought a trauma informed lens to her program and her book Annie and Christen’s young parts showing up when they get more visible How Christen finds safe spaces to get honest, actionable feedback The lightbulb moment when Christen realized she needed to work in a new way Finding the uniqueness of her message while giving credit to all of her sources How she got participants for her program through networking, list building and SEO Show notes at
/episode/index/show/therapistclubhouse/id/35133020
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Numbers to track and ignore
01/21/2025
Numbers to track and ignore
We’re out of balance with how much of our brain energy we give to certain numbers. Like when this happens in my brain: “How many likes did I get for that post?” A few minutes later…”How about now?” Not useful. I want the numbers I track and encourage my clients and listeners to track to be highly meaningful and helpful in making real business decisions. I never want those numbers to make us feel bad or to help us assess our worthiness. Fuck that. Useful numbers help us make decisions and pay attention to what we care about. Less useful numbers stress us out and distract us from what matters to us. Most people I know don’t like to spend much time tracking or analyzing numbers in their businesses. I, on the other hand, can tend to OVER track and analyze. I sometimes like to cope with my anxiety by pretending I have some control. Tracking and analyzing numbers on spreadsheets can sometimes feel soothing. But as a company of one, NOT a huge corporation, I don’t have time or energy to track every single number in my business. Using my intuition AND useful numbers helps me resist some of the most damaging traps we tend to fall into when making decisions. Useful numbers help me resist things like recency bias, confirmation bias, sunk cost fallacy, and shiny object syndrome. In this week’s podcast episode, I talk about the numbers I ALWAYS pay attention to, the numbers I pay attention to just during an experiment, and the numbers I try to ignore. If you want to get my help creating your signature program beyond therapy sessions, head over to . I’d love to support you. People mentioned in this episode: Podge Thomas Bari Tessler Thea Monyee Show notes at
/episode/index/show/therapistclubhouse/id/34933110
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A Program About Women’s Desire | Dr. Jenn Kennedy
12/30/2024
A Program About Women’s Desire | Dr. Jenn Kennedy
Today’s guest is a grad of CYP. If you want this to be the year you finally launch your course or make a pivot to coaching, do what she did. Get my support in a step-by-step process to create and launch it. Head over to . Don’t know what your topic will be? No idea where to start? You’ll be in good company. You do have a program in you. As this is going live, you can still get into the cohort that’s about to start. You’ll be launching your course by a few months from now. If you’re too late, get on the notification list for next time. That’s Now to today’s conversation: Dr. Jenn Kennedy is a clinical sexologist and licensed marriage and family therapist based in Santa Barbara. Dr. Jenn supports clients in the areas of relationships, sex, addiction and LGBT. In 2023, Dr. Jenn launched The Pleasure Project, which is dedicated to helping us all have a better sex life. Through this venture, Dr. Jenn hosts a podcast called Pleasure Project: Sex & Relationships and she offers small group intensives for women and couples. She is coming out with an asynchronous course in 2025. Dr. Jenn has been quoted in Redbook, Reader’s Digest, Forbes Health, DailyOm, Shondaland, Parade, Allure, Yahoo!life and others. She is often tapped to discuss intimacy and sexuality for therapists and physicians. And she’s a grad of Create Your Program. You’re about to hear why she created a program called The Pleasure Circle, to help women who want to want sex more. Here's some of what we talked about: Creating a program for women 40 and over about desire Emotional barriers Dr. Jenn experienced in creating and sharing the program Getting feedback partway through and making adjustments each time How she handles sharing her personal stories (which she does more of in this program than in therapy). Being out as lesbian How she markets her program and brings in participants Annie coaches Dr. Jenn on a pain point around making sales calls Show notes at
/episode/index/show/therapistclubhouse/id/34651675
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How To Get Ready For A Project That Matters
12/17/2024
How To Get Ready For A Project That Matters
I met recently with a group of therapsits and healers who are getting ready to create high quality and life changing courses, workshops and programs. Each of them has a beautiful and unique glimmer of what they will create and they’ve got so much love for the people they’re creating for. Each creator has great personal reasons for creating their offerings: preventing their own burnout, making money without more sessions, having an outlet for their creativity, and creating a body of work that can be shared beyond the privacy of therapy sessions. I talked to them about how to get ready for this big project. I shared what has worked for me and tons of other people accomplishing self-directed projects. When YOU are the boss of whether you do this thing or not, you need to set yourself up well! I’m going to share that with you. Whatever project you’re getting ready for, this is good stuff. And it is NOT about productivity as usual. A project is something with a particular start and end point. For example: Creating and launching your course for the first time. Launching a podcast. Once you’ve launched your course once, you’ve completed that particular project. Once you’ve launched the first episode of your podcast, you’ve completed that project. We can each take on only one or two projects at a time, because we’ve got a lot of other things we’re already busy with. In this episode I talk about how to: Question productivity as usual, and and step into sovereignty instead Be the boss of your to do list rather than it’s employee Make sovereign rather than default choices Identify something to quit so you can free up energy Identify something to do badly so you can free up energy Partner with your nervous system in this project Set aside blocks of time for your project Show notes at
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Creating The Program You Needed
12/03/2024
Creating The Program You Needed
Join me for my annual free planning workshop: Plan Your Aligned Year. December 10th 11 am to 12:30 pm PT I take therapists and healers through a process to create their own courses and programs. That’s my whole job. When I recently got inspired to create a program that’s totally about healing and personal growth I took myself through my own process. I want to share that experience with you as a case study. In this episode, I share my process with you, both what steps I took and also what came up for me emotionally in that process. I’m sharing this to make it easier for you to create and share YOUR program. Estranged is a workshop for adults who are estranged or have disengaged from a parent or caregiver and who are working on building their most beautiful lives and relationships. It’s happening on Thursday, December 12th and Thursday, December 19th from 2 to 3:30 pm PT. Learn about it here: I really could have used this workshop myself many times. I’m one of these people who is estranged from a parent. I’ve also supported a ton of people through letting go of family members when I was a therapist for 20 years. Too often the assumption is that whenever there is estrangement, the goal should be reconnection. Spaces of mental health and personal growth often gets this wrong and do harm. My strong belief is that we get to create the most beautiful and honest lives we are capable of. If a past relationship holds us back from that life, we have every right to let it go or to find the amount of distance that allows us to create that life. I know that having distance from a parent can be an incredibly important part of healing. It has been for me and for so many people I’ve worked with. I believe that every great program has a clear purpose. The purpose of this workshop is to give folks who are estranged support in creating their most beautiful life and relationships. I want participants to practice some tools that help with that process, and to hear from each other so they are reminded how NOT alone they are in their experience. Here's some of what I talk about: Choosing the structure of the workshop Setting the price How I spread the word The mindset stuff that came up for me in creating this Show notes at
/episode/index/show/therapistclubhouse/id/34189290
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Real Advice About Making Money With Your Own Course Or Program: Open Coaching Call Replay
11/19/2024
Real Advice About Making Money With Your Own Course Or Program: Open Coaching Call Replay
Wednesday, November 20th is the last day to sign up for early access to create your program. Do you have a sense of what having your own course or program could do for your career? If you’ve been sitting on an idea for a while, I want to invite you to create your program with me. This is the process where you take your incredible strengths as a therapist or healer and you create a signature program so that you can serve more people, make more money, and get your best ideas out of your head and into a unique container you’ll be able to offer over and over. We go through an 11 week process together step by step so that you are actually launching your program during our time together with my support. Head to to enroll now. I ran a free and open coaching call recently for everyone in our audience, including clients and folks on my email list. We had such great questions that I decided to share the recording with you. Here are the questions I answered and expanded on: What questions should I ask myself to decide what kind of program to create? Do you think in-person or online programs are more in demand right now? Are there any prompts or guidance on how to go about spotlight coaching on group calls? Do I have to set up coaching programs separate from my therapy business? What goals should we aim for when starting a group? How many members? Cost? Time commitment? What's the best way to fill the group? What are some great niches for women’s groups in particular? And what makes a great niche? Do therapists need to be trained as coaches? How do you go from a general to a more specific niche topic? Is trauma healing specific enough? How would you get more specific? If I'm trying to reach people across the country or world, does it still make sense to build up local connections and local networking? The idea of creating a group program and running a group call makes my head explode. Do you have any sense of if individual or group programs tend to be more successful in enrollment? For group programs, how essential is it to use social media as a tool to grow our niche community? Might it work to write articles and listicles as a way to grow my audience? Do I need some type of insurance for liability if I decide to switch from therapy to coaching? Plus we hear from a grad of CYP about an experiment she has been running in her business. Show notes at
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How Can I Run Great Group Calls?
11/05/2024
How Can I Run Great Group Calls?
Today I’m talking about how to run engaging and effective group calls in your signature program, rather than calls that leave people bored or frustrated or just not showing up. When I say PROGRAM, I’m talking about a niched, outcome oriented, structured container. Your program might be a workshop, retreat, group coaching program, course, or some hybrid of different formats. These are the kinds of programs that are always in demand because they actually help people make significant transformations. I’m not talking about flimsy self-led courses here. I’m talking about programs where your participants get to interact with you in a meaningful way. Therapists and healers make the best programs. We’ve got training and experience in how to help people get from point A to point B. We know how to work with resistance, emotions, and all of the other things that make change difficult. If you’ve been a participant in a lot of programs, you know that some group leaders have no idea what they’re doing! You as a therapist or healer have the potential to be a very skilled group leader for your program. BUT there’s some stuff that therapists also need to learn about running calls in their structured, niched and outcome oriented programs. A question I get a lot is: “How can I facilitate group calls well in my new program?” And I’m excited to share my answer with you here. THE TROUBLE WITH THERAPISTS Our biggest mistakes as therapists are that we tend to run our program calls like group therapy sessions when we need to be doing something different. I’ll use myself as an example. I really fucked this up at the beginning. In the beginning, I ran my program calls a lot like group therapy sessions, and that wasn’t what my business coaching program needed. I tended to go towards depth and bigger emotional material because I was comfortable there and that’s what I was used to doing with groups. I had been moving that way during years and years of working as a therapist. If a person brought up feeling stuck in perfectionism or imposter syndrome, I’d expand and encourage that conversation to the point that it took up most of the session. Then I’d try to rush through some business concepts. I didn’t know how to balance that beautiful depth with the need to direct the group towards the goal of the program. My group calls left people feeling understood, bonded to others in the group, and probably with less shame about their experiences. The calls didn’t give the participants enough help with taking strategic steps in their businesses. Were the calls bad? It depends what you think the purpose of the calls was. People who primarily wanted space to process about their emotions about their businesses probably thought the calls were great. People who wanted to move forward with strategy probably felt frustrated. Lots of participants probably felt pretty good about the calls while they were happening, but then bummed out at the end of the program that we hadn’t gotten enough business stuff done. As therapists, we still get to use our attunement skills, but we need to harness them differently. The problem was that I hadn’t chosen ONE clear purpose for my calls. CHOSE A PURPOSE That brings me to one of my favorite thought leaders around running groups: Priya Parker. She’s an author and a facilitator, and she’s NOT a therapist. Her book, The Art Of Gathering, has changed how I think about groups forever. Priya Parker says that for any gathering, you need to choose ONE clear purpose. You definitely need one clear purpose for your program. The purpose of your program is the outcome it helps people move towards. For example: Let’s pretend your program helps couples in blended families to strengthen their relationships. (That’s a juicy niche by the way. Grab it if you want!) This program is designed to get the couple from point A to point B. Point A is where the couple is now, feeling distress in their bond. point B is feeling stronger in their relationship. Every single decision you make about your program should be in service of helping your couples towards the goal of a stronger relationship. Your whole program has a purpose. Within that program, each of the group calls needs to have one clear purpose as well. For each session, you can ask yourself: “What is the one thing that this call needs to do well?” Is the purpose of each meeting to internalize a concept? To feel connected to other participants? To hear each other’s stories? Choose ONE purpose to build the call around. Yes, they’ll get additional benefits out of those meetings too. But choosing just one purpose saves us from this bias we all tend to have. We overestimate our ability to prioritize lots of things at once and do all of them well. That’s when calls get boring and frustrating for the participants, and you notice that people stop showing up. That’s also when you as the leader get stressed out and maybe even resentful. You’re trying to do SO much and it’s not working. Here’s something I hate to hear from the leader at the beginning of a workshop or a meeting: “We’ve got way more stuff to cover than we have time for!” We’ve all learned to humble brag about being over committed and doing too much, but when a group call doesn’t have enough time to accomplish the goal, it’s just not as valuable. RUN YOUR CALLS IN A WAY THAT PROTECTS THE PURPOSE Once you know the purpose of the program and specifically of each of calls, it’s your job to protect that purpose. When people signed up for your program, you promised them a process to get from point A to point B. I’m gonna talk about some things you can do in structuring your calls to make that happen. THINGS TO DO ON THE FIRST CALL Your first meeting will be different from the subsequent ones because the purpose of the first call is to get everyone set up for success in the program. (If what you’re running is a multi-hour workshop or a retreat, this applies to the beginning of that event.) Start on time. If you wait to start until everyone has arrived, people will take that cue and show up late next time. Don’t start the first meeting with logistics because that’s a missed opportunity. Start the very first moment of the very first meeting with something that brings people into more presence. Logistics can be the second thing you do. You might start with a breathing exercise, an inspiring story, or a simple experiential exercise. Name and ask for acknowledgement of group agreements. Ask participants to share other desired agreements, and allow them to email you with suggested additions if they don’t want to bring them up in the group. Tell people how you’d like participants to behave on the group calls. Talk explicitly about what’s in the range of desired behavior, including things like eating, turning their cameras off, coming late or leaving early. There’s no one right answer to these things, so you need to tell them what’s expected here. Model taking care of yourself. For example, take a sip of water and stretch when you need to. Tell people to expect that you’ll interrupt them sometimes, always with loving kindness, because you’re going to be driving this bus towards a particular direction. Tell people what kinds of feedback or comments are welcome. Unlike in a therapy group, their feedback to each other might not be the priority on these calls. If that’s the case, tell them. Tell them how to get the most out of these calls and the whole program. If there’s homework, give them a sense of how much time that will take, and help them plant seeds for themselves about how they’ll get that done and what they’ll do if they fall behind. STRUCTURING THE REST OF YOUR CALLS Start with a ritual in each meeting to help people arrive. Briefly tell people after that ritual what will happen during that call. When that plan changes partway through the call, acknowledge that you’re pivoting. They won’t care that you’re pivoting. They’ll just be glad you’re still driving the bus. If you’ve got multiple group calls, a structure that often works well is one portion for teaching, then a portion for spotlight coaching or discussion. 90 minutes tends to be a good length for calls where both teaching and discussion and coaching happen. If you’ve got 6 people or more, breakout rooms of 2 or 3 people can be a helpful tool for discussion. When you use breakout rooms, give them a prompt and tell them to use the time as feels best. When you’re teaching something, teach! Keep the focus rather than going into too much discussion in the middle of teaching. Every time you teach a concept, include something experiential so that participants can grapple with what they’re learning. That could be as simple as pausing for silent reflection or journaling. You could fill in a worksheet together. You could lead folks through a visualization. Try to show a visual like a slide every time you teach a big concept. You might include spotlight coaching in place of or in addition to more open ended group discussion. This might move you away from your comfort zone if you’ve been a group therapist. In spotlights, you coach one person in front of the group. If you’ve got a lot of expertise in this topic, and people have paid big bucks to learn from you, so don’t shy away from spotlight coaching. Sometimes therapists are so used to saying “you’re the expert on you” or “the group has all the wisdom” that we don’t step into our authority enough. Return to the purpose of your group call. If spotlight coaching will fulfill that purpose better than open ended discussion, do it. Remember when you said you’ll interrupt in order to protect the purpose of the calls? As someone is talking, it is YOUR job to decide if this discussion serves the purpose of the call. If it doesn’t, explain that kindly and move on. On the other hand, If what’s happening with a person does serve the purpose particularly well, you might spend MORE time on one person’s spotlight. At the end of your very last session, do something that brings people into being present, not logistics. That means you’ll need to talk logistics before the end. EXPERIMENT WITH DIFFERENT STRUCTURES I’m a participant in a group right now in which we learn and internalize a new concept each week. The leader summarizes in one sentence what she would like us to internalize. Then she teaches on that. Then we have a discussion to further internalize the concept. In my container, Create Your Program, people do all of the short video lessons and work between sessions. By the way, I do NOT recommend that you prerecord videos. I recommend that you teach everything live at least the first time you run your program. I taught CYP live many times before I recorded the curriculum. In CYP, the purpose of the weekly calls is to move through obstacles to getting your program created and launched. The structure of most of my calls is a quick ritual, then spotlight coaching, and sometimes a 10 minute breakout with groups of 2 or 3. People get other benefits from the calls, but by focusing on that one purpose, I know the calls do that one thing really well. I’ve also been a participant in a group where we met two times a week. One session was all about learning a concept, and the other session was for discussion and Q&A. DIFFICULT MOMENTS Handling difficult moments might come easily to you as a therapist. We know how to have some really tricky conversations while staying present. One difficult thing you’ll deal with is shame. Your participants will sometimes experience shame during calls because they’re learning big stuff and making changes. Rather than expanding in that direction, which might be too much for the container, you might want to normalize and contain shame. You’re containing the group process, not the person. One way to do that is to say out loud what you see in others (” I see lots of head nods” or “I see a lot of resonance on people’s faces”) to show that the person is not alone in their experience. You can also name it if you have struggled in a similar way yourself. If a participant seems to be in fight or flight or freeze, you might acknowledge that things got big, and that this is big stuff. Name that you’ll circle back with the person if that feels right. Don’t feel you have to tie a bow on every interaction. You won’t always be able to fix or resolve everything, and that’s OK. When you’re the one who gets dysregulated, especially if you cause any kind of harm, name it. Say “that was about me.” Don’t over apologize, because then participants are likely to feel they need to take care of you. Circle back next time if you’ve got more accountability to take. Even if you’re not normally available between calls, you’ll need to be available if a conflict happened and harm happened. Now remember what I said about talking about homework in the first session? It’s gonna come up in subsequent sessions. If you’ve got a program where there’s homework, you’ll need to acknowledge many times that it’s hard to get the work done. Whether you give 5 minutes of homework or 3 hours of homework, it will be hard for people to get it done. If there’s any way to get people to the outcome without homework, don’t assign homework! This is gonna go against your therapist sensibility, but you’ve got to contain the conversation around how hard it is to get the homework done. Don’t allow your program to become a group only about how hard it is to do the homework. That will not serve the purpose of the group. In my program, there’s a LOT of homework. The homework is broken down into bite sized pieces, but it’s a lot, because people are creating their programs. I have a lot of practice at normalizing the struggle to get things done, and strategizing with people about what to prioritize and what to let go of. BE WILLING TO BE LESS LIKED This is something you might already be good at as a therapist. Running a group program is great for getting over people pleasing because you can’t people please 4 or 8 or 25 people at once. I used to have the habit of scanning for the person who looked least happy on the call and focusing on them. I rarely do that anymore. Partly because I’ve done a lot of trauma healing recently and partly also just because I’m 52, I just don’t need everyone to like me at every moment. It’s also helped me to be a participant and watch group leaders who don’t take it personally when someone is struggling or unhappy in the moment. I’ve noticed how calm that makes me feel. I’ve watched myself as a participant and noticed when I’m the “difficult person”. It’s fine and helpful to be redirected in those moments. When someone else is the “difficult person”, it’s very comforting to watch the group leader handle it with compassion and clear boundaries. I work to allow myself to be a conduit for anger, frustration, or whatever a participant might need to feel in a particular moment. It’s always generous to protect the purpose of the group. Therapists and healers really do create the best programs. Once you harness what you’re already great at and grow your skills around this particular kind of facilitation, my prediction is that you’re going to be hooked on running group programs. The energy and mutual support that happen make group calls my favorite part of my whole job. Show notes at
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Ask Annie: Are People Just Looking For A Quick Fix? I Don’t Offer That!
10/22/2024
Ask Annie: Are People Just Looking For A Quick Fix? I Don’t Offer That!
The fact that you are providing a real and nuanced process rather than a quick fix is actually not a problem. It’s how you’re going to attract the right folks to your work. Therapists and healers work with me to create high quality, niched programs beyond private practice. The people I work with have a ton of integrity. What I mean by that is that the people I work with really give a shit about the work they do and the programs they create. They care deeply about the people they help. As they’re getting clear on their niches, I hear something like this from many of them: “I like to help people with deep and nuanced transformation rather than quick fixes or practical tips. I worry that people are just looking for the practical solutions.” This thing tends to happen: Once you’ve chosen the topic of your signature program, you might start noticing Reels, Tiktoks or articles with simple tips to solve the problem you help people with. Some of those tips are useful, or even sufficient for some people. But those are not the people you’re selling your program to. Your people are ready for a paradigm shift, and that’s what you’re going to guide them through. Before they even sign up to work with you, they’ll learn that you’re inviting them to look at their problem in a different way, perhaps questioning some of their underlying assumptions. I actually encourage you to lean in to the depth and nuance of the solution you offer. Leave the quick tips to someone else. You get to be known for the stuff you are great at. The people who want to purchase your program have probably already tried those practical strategies, and have been failed by them, or they’ve already spotted that those strategies aren’t the right fit for them. Maybe some of your people are wondering why those things haven’t worked for them. They might even feel shame that they don’t seem able to fix this problem when some people say it’s simple. The attractiveness of YOUR offer is that you have a deeper solution, one that perhaps gets to the root of the issue. And your solution is one that they have not yet tried. You get to tell them: “You’ve tried these practical tips. It’s not your fault that those things haven’t solved this for you. To have a lasting change in how you experience this issue, here’s a completely different approach.” And then you name the paradigm shift. The person who wants to work with you will feel relief and resonance. I’ll give you an example. Lots of therapists I’ve worked with who help parents tell me: “I want to help parents who’s kids are having undesirable behaviors, but I’m not going to teach the parents how to get their kids to stop doing the undesirable behavior. I’m going to take the parents through a much deeper process that has to do with the parents accepting themselves and deeply accepting their child. The behaviors do usually shift quite a bit during that process, but I don’t want to promise that.” Great! You’re going to work with people ready for a paradigm shift around their children’s difficult behavior. If they’re like I was when my kids were younger, they’ve already tried about a million tips that seemed to work for other parents. But nothing stuck, and none of it really helped my family to feel grounded at a deeper level. Don’t hide the fact that you have a deeper solution, and don’t apologize for it. Lead with it. If you can articulate this paradigm shift well, the right folks will be grateful they finally found you. Your future participants are smart, and they like hearing what YOU’RE saying because they’re finally hearing something that sounds true. You’ll talk about the problem exactly as your right fit person is experiencing it, which perhaps includes feeling totally frustrated, hopeless, confused or ashamed. You’ll help them feel less shame when you point out that the reason why those quick fix solutions haven’t worked is because those tips don’t address the root of the issue. There’s nothing wrong with them. It’s not their fault. A deeper paradigm shift is needed, and it’s totally normal that they need support in moving through that. In fact, when I realize I’m ready for a paradigm shift, it’s an easy leap to wanting to consider signing up for your high touch program. If I’m gonna do some deep unlearning and profound inner work, I’m probably going to benefit from a container and a guide to walk me through that. And by the way, you probably DO offer some practical tips that will help your people find some relief soon. Feel free to share those too. In fact, just hearing about this paradigm shift is probably already helping them feel better. Join me for a free workshop on choosing a juicy niche for your program beyond private practice. Sign up at . It’s live on Tuesday, October 29th at 11am PT. But if you sign up you’ll also get a recording for about a week. A great niche is a HUGE predictor of the success of your program beyond private practice. Niching for a program beyond private practice is totally different from niching for your therapy practice. What worked there might not work here. We’ll talk about how to choose a juicy niche and how to articulate your niche so that the right people understand how valuable your program is. I haven’t offered a free workshop on niching in years, and I may not do it again for quite a while. I’d love to have you there. Get on the waitlist for Create Your Program If you’re thinking you might want to get my guidance with creating and selling your signature program, make sure you also get on the waitlist for Create Your Program. We start in January 2025, but I’ve got some really good early bird bonuses ONLY for folks who sign up in November. So go to and get on that list so you’re notified as soon as we open registration. Show notes at
/episode/index/show/therapistclubhouse/id/33540972
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Why It’s NOT Too Late To Create Your Program
08/20/2024
Why It’s NOT Too Late To Create Your Program
If you want to work in a different way, but you feel like maybe it’s too late to start your own signature program or you regret not starting sooner, this episode is for you. In the last couple of years I have done a LOT of things that I had thought maybe it was too late to do. So I feel you. One of those has been returning to roller skating. You know the proverb. The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The next best time is now. For me, the best time to return to roller skate would have been 30 years ago. The next best time just happened. I went to roller discos as a kid in the early 80’s from about age 8 to 10 and I felt so alive and joyful. Skating felt like flying and dancing at the same time. I was part of a little crew of girls who skated together. We got sparkly T shirts with roller skates on the front and abbreviations of our names on the back, just to save money on the letters. A couple of my birthday parties were at the roller disco. When Dolly Parton, Donna Summer or Blondie came on I would get shivers. My family moved across the country when I was 10 and I stopped roller skating partly because I didn’t have my crew anymore and partly because I felt more awkward and self conscious in my body as I got older. As an adult, through my 30’s and 40’s I wished I could roller skate again, but I figured it was too late. I assumed I would fall and injure myself if I tried. And I guess I worried that I would look foolish. As roller skating made a big revival in the last few years, I kept seeing the cutest roller skates everywhere. When I would walk past the roller skaters in golden gate park, I felt that longing. I also noticed that lots of the skaters there appeared to be my age or older. As I was turning 50, I did a little research and discovered it actually STILL wasn’t too late for me to get on roller skates. Not at ALL too late. So for my 50th birthday I bought a pair of purple skates, knee pads, wrist guards, and elbow pads. The first thing you’re supposed to do is practice falling safely, so I did that about 100 times. By the way, I know there’s a whole camp of skaters who don’t believe in using padding. I’m not here to fight about it. I see you and I respect you. I finally I got myself to the outdoor skating area in Golden Gate Park. It’s flat and smooth, and several times a week there’s even someone from the community playing music with a huge speaker. I shyly asked the incredible roller skaters about the etiquette and advice for a new skater. Then I slowly rolled out there. I realized I could still roller skate. Even after 40 years my body still remembered how. Even if I didn’t already know how, it wouldn’t have been too late. I’ve met plenty of people who started skating at lots of different ages. I basically just skate around the area enjoying the music. I feel joy and energy moving through my body. Just like when I was 10, I feel like I’m flying and dancing. Some folks are in the middle of the area dancing their asses off. Maybe I’ll start learning some of those moves soon. I keep my roller skates and protective gear in my trunk at all times so that I can skate whenever I get the chance. I go about once a week. Sometimes my spouse comes and sits and watches. They say they love how happy I look. I know how to fall safely, but at this point I haven’t actually fallen. But I probably will, especially when I start learning those dance moves. And that’s totally OK with me. Back to creating your own program. If you’ve been wanting to create a program beyond private practice, but a part of you has thought it’s already too late, let’s try something for a moment. Let’s do a little parts work, inspired by IFS and other things. What part of you is trying to be heard with that regret or that fear? Hear them out. If it’s the right path for you, it is not too late. In your wisest and most embodied self, you know this. But also if you’ve got a part that feels like it’s too late, you might need to hear that part out. It’s trying to protect you in the best way it knows how. So let this “it’s too late” part know that you are ready to listen and that you’re grateful for it’s attempt at protecting you. Kindly let that part vent about why they think it’s too late. And take notes. Maybe you’ll hear: Other people are already doing it. The market is saturated. People already know me as a therapist. If I had started when I first wanted to I’d already be successful but now I’d be a beginner. People don’t buy courses anymore. If I do it now, I’ll have to feel the grief of not having done it sooner. Then when the “it’s too late” part has gotten it all out, you can converse with that part. I can help because I know what it actually takes to create a successful program. I’m an actual expert on creating and making a living from your unique and excellent program. So let’s go through those reasons one by one. I realize you may have come up with other reasons why it’s too late. I tried to cover the most common ones here Other people are already doing it: Yep. There’s probably at least a handful of successful people in your niche. That’s a good sign. It probably means there are people paying them and it’s a viable niche. It would be unusual to step into a niche no one else is in. Some people are going to want to pay YOU to be the one to help them because you’re the best fit. Just like there’s room for lots of therapists, there’s room for more than one program in your niche of choice. The market is saturated: A funny thing happens. Whatever niche you choose, you’ll start to see evidence that your niche is saturated. That’s because you’re paying lots of attention to what’s going on in your niche. Confirmation bias will have you believing that your niche is the most saturated one. That’s incredibly unlikely. People already know me as a therapist: If people know that you’ve been a therapist for a long time, your program is going to look even MORE valuable to them. Your experience as a therapist is part of what sets you apart. It’s beautiful to have more than one identity. If you’re already wishing you’d done this sooner, now is a great time to show yourself that you’re not limited to one identity or one way of working for the rest of your career. If I had started when I first wanted to, I’d already be successful, but now I’d be a beginner: You’ve been a beginner so many times before. Learning new things is incredibly good for keeping you in an optimal state of growth and happiness. Starting your own program is a gorgeous blend of being really experienced in your work AND being a beginner at offering your work in a new way. You’ve got new stuff to learn about how to turn your best work into a program, and how to make money with that program. And you don’t have to figure it all out on your own. People don’t buy courses anymore. The truth is people don’t tend to pay as much for self-led courses where they will go through curriculum without getting access to the creator. We’re smart to be wary of self-led courses. The completion rates for self-led courses tend to be quite low. We’re tired of purchasing these courses and never doing them. It’s always the right time for a high-quality program in which participants will get coached by you or observe you coaching others, and will get their particular questions answered. It will always be the right time for great programs like these because they work. If I do it now, I’ll have to feel the grief of not having done it sooner. Yes love, and that grief is there because it matters to you. Grief happens when let ourselves feel. If you haven’t allowed yourself to work in the way that suits you, you will likely feel grief as you finally give yourself permission. Once you have heard everything from that “it’s too late” part, see if you can hear from the part of you that feels curious and excited about working in a new way. If the “it’s too late part” interrupts, ask if they would step back for a moment so you can find out more about the part that’s curious and excited about working in a new way. See what you dream up. I would love to know what you come up with. If you’re a therapist or healer and you want to work and make money in a new way, I would love to have you in Create Your Program. You’ll walk through a step-by-step process with me and a small group of therapists and healers to create a high-quality program and offer it to the people who need it. That’s a big goal, and I break it down for you into tiny goals you can accomplish one at a time. And you get my coaching along the way. We get started very soon and enrollment is open right now for just a little while. Sign up right away to make sure you get a special bonus training only available this week. This is your last chance until at least 2025 to walk through this process with me. Go to I’m excited to support you. Show notes at
/episode/index/show/therapistclubhouse/id/32627892
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When You Feel Resistance
08/06/2024
When You Feel Resistance
I help therapists and healers who have private practices to add a second part to their business models. I show you how to create a niched and outcome based program that you can get known for and offer to people all over the world. Learn more about that and get on the notification list at . I would love to see your name on that list. You’ll get informed as soon as enrollment opens, which happens very soon. I realized I need to tell you something today: Even if you are doing your marketing right, you probably won’t enjoy it all of the time. This is sort of a part 2 to my last podcast episode. Here’s a summary of that in case you didn’t hear it or you’d like a quick recap: Reactive marketing is when you feel like you urgently must take action to make more money, to get more people to sign up for your work, or to fix something that seems broken in your business. You know you’re in reactive mode when you believe you’ve got to do something NOW to market your work. If lots of your marketing activity is reactive marketing, it isn’t going to be very effective and it’s going to burn you out. When you’re reactive, you’re not tuned in to the people you want to serve, you don’t have access to your more creative parts, and you aren’t taking action from a thoughtful strategy. Relaxed marketing is what we want to be engaging in at least 90% of the time. Whether you’re creating content, reaching out to referral partners, running free live events, pitching to podcasts, or writing website copy, whatever it is that you’re doing during your marketing time, you want to engage in it with a more relaxed nervous system. You’ll come up with better, more attuned work when you do that. And you’re going to be able to make better decisions about what your overall marketing strategy looks like. I received emails from some of you letting me know that the episode really resonated with you. You loved being reminded that you’ll do your best work when you’re tuning into the people you’re serving, and NOT when you’re in panic mode. The next thing I need to share involves a lot of nuance: Even if you engage in relaxed marketing practices, You might still not enjoy marketing some of the time. “Relaxed” might not be the way you feel when you’re sitting down to your marketing activities. Two things happened today that reminded me to talk about this nuanced truth. One is: I sat down to do some of my own marketing work. I was not in urgency or panic, and I WAS tapped into the needs of the people I am here to serve. I also didn’t feel relaxed. I felt a bit of dread, a bit of anxiety, and a strong urge to find something else to do. I felt my heart rate speed up a bit. I felt the fear that I might not have a good idea to share. (Yes, Even though I’ve got a huge list of ideas that I’ve been storing up for years). I had the thought “I hate this part.” We have a pillow that lists dozens of emotions, so that we can look at it and identify which ones we are feeling in the moment. Yeah, it's the kind a therapist might have in their office. In that moment I identified “inadequate, avoidant and worried.” Then in order to properly procrastinate, I opened Instagram and I saw a post from one of my favorite writers, Clementine Morrigan. She writes on personal growth, trauma, polyamory and other stuff, and she’s a leftist. Here she’s talking specifically about writing, but I want to apply this to how it can feel to work on marketing your wonderful work. Clementine says: “I find writing viscerally uncomfortable. Sometimes it is excruciatingly painful. It almost never feels good. The thing that is most important to me and that I have dedicated my life to is extremely difficult and unpleasant for me to actually do lol. Your calling might not feel good. I don’t think anyone tells us that. Pleasure and ease are not the only indications that a thing is worth doing. Sometimes our most important and rewarding work feels bad." So I read that. Then I thought of you. If you heard my last episode and felt excited to commit or recommit to some regular, more relaxed marketing practices, you might have then sat down to do your marketing work and felt something other than relaxed. Just like I often do. Maybe distressed or avoidant or inadequate or afraid. So I realized I NEED you to know you’re not doing it wrong. Sometimes doing the work of marketing is not joyful even when you’re doing it right. I NEVER want to make you feel like there’s some perfect way to run a business that will have you in ease and riches all of the time, and that you just haven't discovered it yet. Marketing your offers can bring up so many feelings. Now I want to talk about some ways to move through the discomfort and stick with it anyway. Here are some things that work for most people most of the time: Know that you’re not alone if you sometimes have a hard time in doing the work of marketing. Remind yourself of your personal reasons for marketing your offers. Perhaps you want to work in new ways or make more money or shift your schedule or create your body of work. Remind yourself of the reasons why your work matters to the people who need it. Write those things down and look at them when you are struggling. Give yourself tons of credit. Remind yourself that you are doing brave and vulnerable work. You are claiming the value of the work you offer the world and telling people that it matters. You’re reaching out to the people who need your help and you’re willing to be uncomfortable to do it. Remind yourself that by marketing your offers, you’re doing the work of growing your business. That’s part of taking care of yourself. Your younger parts are watching you and feeling taken care of. Depending on your life situation, you might also be supporting other humans with your business. Don’t let a marketing session go on for too long, even if it is going well. Save some energy for next time. We hunger to get into a flow state where we don’t really notice time going by. In that state, it feels like words are writing themselves or whatever action we’re taking is happening without effort. We still need to stop or take a break after a reasonable amount of time. Otherwise we may feel so depleted that we have a hard time creating again next time. I heard that tip from who I interviewed on the podcast. , another mentor of mine who I interviewed on the podcast, speaks about reserving some of your energy. She follows the 80/20 rule, meaning that 80% of her waking time is put towards living, healing, connecting, and other things outside of productivity. Only 20% of her time goes towards any kind of work. She avoids working more than four hours a day. Bring something pleasurable into the experience of your marketing sessions in order to counteract your negativity bias. Bringing in a positive association begins to tell our nervous system that this activity is not all bad. For me, moving to a cozy spot in my house, playing my favorite instrumental mix or changing into my most comfortable clothes can give my nervous system the message that something good is happening. Have a starting ritual. This could be a gorgeous, involved ritual, or it could be as simple as making yourself a cup of coffee. Those things work for most people most of the time to keep doing the work of marketing. Notice what works for you. One more note about that last episode: If you heard my last in my last episode, you heard me talk about how much I love taking care of my indoor plants. I compared relaxed marketing to my plant care rituals, in which experience a lot of pleasure in tuning into each plant. I left something out because it didn’t really add to the story. Now it’s relevant. A year and a half ago, I had 75 houseplants. When I was getting ready to move across town, I decided to give away about 50 of them. I realized I was starting to feel a bit burdened by my indoor jungle. Now I’ve got 24 houseplants, and that’s a fun amount for me. There’s a difference between engaging in a really fun hobby and running a business. We can experience joy and pleasure in our businesses, and we’re going to feel discomfort sometimes. Show notes at
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Stop Reactive Marketing
07/16/2024
Stop Reactive Marketing
I help therapists and healers who have private practices to add a second part to their business models. I show you how to create a niched and outcome based program that you can offer to people all over the world. Learn more and get on the waitlist at . I would love to see your name on that list. You’ll get informed as soon as enrollment opens next month. I’m gonna talk about my houseplants for a moment, but this episode is really about how to create effective marketing practices. I had a moment of freak out with my houseplants the other day. I looked up and saw that a group of my plants under the skylight by my home office were very sad and thirsty. One of them looked like it had been receiving too much sun for a few days. I grabbed my watering can immediately, watered them, and moved the over-sunned plant to a different spot. Phew! I’d solved the immediate and obvious problems. That’s reactive plant care. Of course sometimes it’s necessary to get reactive, just to keep my plants alive. It’s just not joyful or sustainable for me or the plants to be in this mode most of the time. If that were the only kind of care I was giving my plants, I wouldn’t want to have plants, and they wouldn’t really want me either. You see, I really enjoy taking care of my houseplants. I enjoy learning what they need and tuning into them. I spend some time just about every week hanging out with my plants, watering them, fertilizing them, trimming them, cleaning off their leaves, turning them so that different sides of them get light, moving their location if they’re getting too much or too little light, repotting the ones that need it, adding new soil to some of them, spotting and removing pests, and on and on. Before this recording, I looked at my fern. She’s lovely. Her new growth looks so green and happy. I felt inspired to take her into the shower and give her a really good spray. I also peeked at my fiddle leaf fig. She’s a bit dusty right now. Later I’ll give her leaves a nice wipe down because I know she’ll enjoy a bit more light when she’s clean. When I do this stuff, I’m present and relaxed. My plants thrive when I’m doing this and I kind of do too. When at least 90% of my houseplant care happens in this relaxed way, we’re all thriving. I’m describing reactive plant care vs. relaxed plant care. I believe it works the same way with the marketing in my business. And in your business. Here’s how reactive marketing looks You have a moment of anxiety, and you think: “I need to do something RIGHT NOW to get people to buy my offer!” The trigger of this thought could be that you aren’t hitting your revenue goal. Or your group isn’t filling. Or you realize you haven’t gotten any new referrals for a while. Or you see another entrepreneur on Instagram and it looks like they are having more success than you, so you think “I need to do what they’re doing, like now.” Or maybe you’re just having a hard day. Doing something quickly in your marketing because you’re anxious or afraid or feeling scarcity is reactive marketing. Maybe you quickly email your list after over a month away. Maybe you create a social media post. Maybe you sign up for a course on some aspect of marketing that you think you should be doing. Whatever you do, you’re feeling pretty anxious while you do it. If you’re doing a lot of reactive marketing, that’s not gonna go well for you or your business. I understand why you get reactive. The things you’re anxious about matter. You need to pay your bills. It matters that people find your work. Your identity as a business owner matters. So does just getting to do enough of the thing you want to do. But the reactivity that capitalism encourages in us is not what we want to let guide us. Here’s why reactive marketing doesn’t work In reactive marketing, you’re in scarcity, panic and self doubt. The actions you take from that place won’t be the actions to make your business thrive. When you’re doing reactive marketing, you don’t do your most creative, interesting or attuned work, so it doesn’t speak to your future participant very well. It’s not fun or sustainable for you so you’ll be more likely to burn out. Also, there’s just not much you can do in one day or one moment to see significant results in your business. For all of these reasons, If you’re spending more than 10% of your marketing time in reactive mode, it’s way too much. Here’s what you CAN’T do when you’re in reactive mode You aren’t in your safe and relaxed nervous system, so you can’t feel your love, attunement or empathy for the people you serve. You can’t feel your confidence and love of your offering. You can’t figure out a creative and sound overall marketing strategy. Here’s what an effective marketing system looks like Marketing is everything you do to bring people to your work. I break marketing down into 3 parts: grow, nurture and sell. Grow means bringing new people to your work who are not yet aware of it. Nurture means showing people who are aware of your work how you can help. Sell means making a clear offer so they can decide whether to sign up to work with you. Doing all of those things effectively doesn’t happen when you’re in reactive mode. You need a set of marketing practices that allow you to do all 3 of those things somewhat regularly. Think of yourself as a marketing team, because you are. If anyone has ever hired you, then your business is already doing some kind of marketing. Your business has a marketing team. Perhaps you are that whole team. Great. You’ve got a marketing team of one. You want your marketing team to be creative, strategic, and calm. You want them to have a sense of what they’re doing each week to grow, nurture and sell. You’d prefer that the team has access to creativity, care about your clients and feel excited about your offer. You wouldn’t want to start meetings with your marketing team each week by saying “React to this problem! I have no plan! Just do something! Do it today! What’s wrong with you?!” I doubt you’d EVER treat a team member (other than you) that way. You’d like that team to be working in a relaxed way at least 90% of the time so that they could feel good and do their best work. The alternative to reactive marketing is relaxed marketing. Relaxed marketing might look like this: Perhaps set aside 3 hours each week, or maybe it’s 8 hours every other week. You choose an amount and a rhythm that works with your body and life. You set aside and then honor that time on your calendar. Think of that time as a relaxed marketing session with your team of one. During your relaxed marketing sessions: You spend time planning what you’ll do to grow, nurture and sell. You make sure your plan is realistic to do in the amount of time you’ve got. You pick a few activities to do pretty well rather than trying to do everything you see others doing. You start tracking what’s already working so that you can do more of those things. When it’s time to reach out to a potential referral partner, you do it in a kind, respectful and generous way. When it’s time to create content like an email, article, social media post, video or a podcast episode, you encourage your idea generation to flow by asking yourself questions like: What is my right fit person struggling with right now around my topic? What do they need to know in order to be ready to make a decision about working with me? What do they not know about this topic that they need to know? What do I wish I could say about this topic, but I couldn’t dare? (You probably should!) Whenever you have an idea about content you might create or an activity you’d like to try in your marketing, you jot it down so that when your relaxed marketing session comes, you’ve got new ideas handy. Either during your relaxed marketing sessions or outside of them, you read or listen to people who inspire you and percolate on what you’re learning. All of that is relaxed marketing. Ah, that feels so much better. So what about those times when you’re anxious and feeling scarcity and you’re tempted to do some reactive marketing? Here’s what I try to do: I take a moment to feel my feelings. I make room for my fear or anxiety. Then I reach out to an entrepreneur friend and talk about how I’m feeling. I immediately feel less alone and less stressed. Then when I’m ready, I get curious about what I might want to do differently. I bring that strategic and creative thinking to my next relaxed marketing session. But is it OK to DO the reactive thing? Sure! As long as it takes up just 10% or less of your marketing activities, you can go ahead and do the reactive thing if you want to. It might help and it probably won’t hurt. It’s no big deal either way. If you do that thing, observe how it feels and whether it works. If it works well, you can bring that action into your future relaxed marketing sessions. Want to work with me to create a valuable, niched, outcome-based program beyond your private practice that you can offer to people all over the world and get known for? Get on the waitlist for Create Your Program. Enrollment opens up next month and I would love to support you. You’ll walk through a step-by-step process together with me and a small group of smart and kind therapists and healers. You’ll be launching your program by the end of our time together. Go to to get your name on the list so you’re informed as soon as enrollment opens. Show notes at
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Two Sisters Create A Program With Kaitlyn & Meghann Ellis
07/02/2024
Two Sisters Create A Program With Kaitlyn & Meghann Ellis
I love encouraging healers and therapists to think deeply and creatively about what their work could look like. I often say: Step out of default thinking for a moment and give yourself permission to dream into what you want to create. Who are you serving? How are you working with them? What work do you no longer do or do less of? What does your day look like? Who are you collaborating with? In this episode I got to talk to 2 sisters who dreamed up a way to work differently by creating a business together! Meet Kaitlyn and Meghann Ellis. Meghann Ellis is a therapist with over 18 years experience and has a specialty in complex trauma, EMDR and dissociative diagnoses. She has combined forces with her twin sister, Kaitlyn Ellis, who is an Occupational Therapist and pelvic floor specialist with over 20 years of experience. Together they run Twin Root Wellness Here’s some of what we talked about: Combining the skills of an Occupational Therapist and a mental health expert in one program Choosing the niche of pregnant and post-partum athletes The unique physical and emotional struggles of athlete mothers How they realized they wanted to start this business together Why Meghann is finding that this work prevents her from burning out as a therapist How they nurture their relationship and communicate as both sisters and business partners How they bring in referrals and build their audience Why they are starting with individual coaching before creating a group program Show notes at
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Is It OK To Do Less Long-Term Work?
06/18/2024
Is It OK To Do Less Long-Term Work?
This is a short episode and it’s really about you giving yourself permission to do the work that is going to feel most joyful and sustainable for you. I’m going to talk about two different roles we might choose for ourselves as therapists, healers and coaches: A catalyst who helps people through a big and clear change in a particular area of their lives. OR An integrator who helps people grow and maintain changes over a long period of time in many areas of their lives. I know there’s a lot of overlap and nuance between these 2 roles. Therapists I work with who want to create signature programs beyond private practice often want to be in the role of catalyst more of the time, and long-term integrator less of the time. They’re feeling over-full on the long-term work of helping their clients day-by-day, week-by-week, month-by-month and year-by-year. They value that long-term work and are honored to get to do it, but they fear that if they keep doing it full time, they’re going to burn out, or maybe just not love their work so much. In the programs they create, these therapists want to be in the role of short-term change catalyst. They want to step further into their role as teacher, presenter, and facilitator. They want to create a container that moves participants through a process of profound growth in a particular area that they really care about. The topics of these programs include: sexuality, relationships, parenting, money, business, and particular life experiences like divorce and grief…and on and on. I’ll give you a few examples of programs folks have created in a minute. These programs are time-limited, usually happening over a number weeks or just a few days. These therapists find it satisfying to watch their people have big insights and make big changes and progress in their programs. But when folks are getting ready to create their programs, they sometimes think… “Wait a minute. Even if I help people create a lot of change quickly, maintaining those changes takes long-term work. It’s not just one and done. So then is my program valuable enough if it doesn’t help people through the long-term maintenance of that change?” Here’s my answer: YES. The focused change your program creates is highly valuable. Both kinds of work are totally valuable and necessary. Neither kind of work is more or less valuable. As a therapist, I was trained with a bit of either/or thinking. I remember learning that REAL change takes time, and that rapid change is probably fleeting. Perhaps as therapists, sometimes this is a defensive stance. Sometimes the long-term, subtler work of a therapist doesn’t get enough credit because it’s less obvious than the change that happens during something like a retreat or a workshop. But you, my friend, are not going to devalue that long-term work. AND you still might not always want to do that long-term work yourself. You can choose to run a time-limited program and you can also encourage your participants to keep doing long-term work after they are done with your program. Think of this from the participant’s point of view. I’ll use myself as an example. When a topic really matters to me, I want to work with someone who is obsessed with that topic for a period of time. I want to be held in a container where I’ll get to focus on topic only. I want a curated experience that is designed to help me make a significant change. This happened to me recently. I was a participant last year in Deb Benfield’s program: Aging With Vitality And Body Liberation. As a 52 year old who has a body, I loved the idea of putting myself in Deb’s hands to go through a big transformative experience over 8 weeks. I wanted to deprogram myself from ageism and step further into body liberation. I know Deb is an expert in both of these areas, and is one of the ONLY people who is really a badass in both areas. In the venn diagram of body liberation and pro-aging, you find Deb and few others in that intersection. she was a grad of my programs, so I know her work well and I trust her. In signing up for Deb’s program, I wanted a focused experience to bring about some big changes in perspective and to jump start a process to serve me for as long as I’m lucky enough to keep on aging. I had already done some learning about pro-aging. I’d done years and years of work around body liberation. And within the first session interacting with Deb and the small group, I had some insights that shifted my trajectory permanently. I got to focus on this one topic with Deb so those insights and shifts kept coming. Could I have gone into individual long-term work instead for the same result? Not really. I wouldn’t have had the curated experience Deb was able to provide. In long-term work, I would have been busy integrating all the other areas of my life as a parent, partner, business owner, friend, and person healing from childhood trauma. I benefited from the container being ALL about change within this one topic. Now I can take those insights and all the transformation that happened over those 8 weeks and integrate them long term. You better bet that even though the 8 weeks are over, from time to time whenever anything comes up around aging, health, food, or bodies, I say “well Deb Benfield says…” Now I’ll share a few more examples of programs that folks in the most recent cohort of CYP have created. All of these are designed to bring about big changes in a particular area over a short period of time. All of them are on topics that are profoundly important to the creator of the program as well as the participants who will enroll. All of these are delivered live by the the creator. Aliza Septimus created an Anxiety Relief Program to help people manage worrying thoughts, calm their bodies, and confidently face things they tend to avoid. Alana Jaeck created Not Just A Pet, a program to help people navigate the loss, or the impending loss of a pet and find their own unique way through the grief. Salina Bambic created a program to help young adults struggling with social anxiety to build confidence so they can form relationships. Ali Schaffer created Wandering In Spain, a retreat for women who are ready to experience transformation through exploration and engagement with nature. Emily Germain created Connected Relationships, a program for busy, motivated couples who are struggling with disconnection. I’ll be sharing more examples in future episodes because I LOVE to brag on what our grads have created AND because many of you tell me you crave examples so that you can imagine what’s possible. Now after hearing all of this, do you still find yourself wondering whether it’s OK to just be a change catalyst? Do you still question whether it’s enough to take people through a valuable and time-limited process and then let them turn to other long-term support? Maybe there’s some part of you that believes you that you’ve got to suffer in order to be enough. Maybe there’s a part of you that withholds permission to work in the way you will find most joyful and sustainable. If that resonates, I would encourage you to sit with that belief and see if your wisest self agrees. My bet is no. Remember, this week is the time to enroll in CYP to get early access to the curriculum all summer AND a bonus training to help you fill your program. Go to . I can’t wait to support you. Show notes at
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A Program For Moms With ADHD | Robin Gibler
06/04/2024
A Program For Moms With ADHD | Robin Gibler
Some people create the program they needed for themself. As you move through a challenging situation and you grow from it, learn about yourself, and find community, you realize: “This did not need to be QUITE this hard! I want to create a process or a container to help people move through this with more support.” If you also happen to be a therapist or healer, you may realize you’re uniquely equipped to create something really effective and powerful. My guest Robin Gibler did just that when she created a program for moms with ADHD. Robin is a licensed professional counselor specializing in maternal mental health. As a mom with ADHD herself, she is passionate about providing education and support for other women to create their own version of what motherhood looks like and care for kids who may also be neurodivergent. Here's some of what we talked about: What ADHD feels like for moms who are overburdened by the impossible cultural standards of motherhood Why moms with ADHD often feel: “I must not be trying hard enough.” How our hormones impact our ADHD symptoms Why Robin started a group program for moms with ADHD How Robin designed her group program and decided what to include and what not to Developing a longer program including guest speakers and a community cohort How ADHD shows up in Robin’s business and how she works with her strengths How she gives herself time to be the visionary in her business with solo mini retreats Giving up her group practice with 11 therapists because it wasn’t the right business model for her strengths and challenges Show notes at
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Do Less Emotional Labor In Your Business
05/21/2024
Do Less Emotional Labor In Your Business
At first this will seem like a story about my online yoga instructor. But it’s really a story about making your business more sustainable by stopping unnecessary and exhausting emotional labor. First of all, I know what you’re thinking. It’s so unexpected to hear about a 52-year-old white woman doing yoga. Kidding. This past fall I was getting back into yoga after several years away. I started with a 30-days-of-yoga video series by an instructor. I sensed that I’d like her in real life. She had spunk, made kind of inapropriate jokes, wore fun rocker outfits, and had good banter. She even had a sweet dog who joined her on the mat. It took me about 3 months to get through all 30 videos. When I was done with those, I wanted to do more of her videos. I searched her name on YouTube again, and a different instructor came up. I started trying one of this new person’s videos. It was OK, but this person wasn’t telling jokes. Her voice was lower. There was more silence. I was kinda pissed. I called my partner over and said: “Isn’t this illegal? She’s got the same name, she even has a dog who looks like the other instructor’s dog. Can she DO this? It’s like identity theft.” And Ames said: “That’s her. That’s the same person.” “NO it can’t be” I said. I looked back and discovered the 30 days of videos I had watched were from 9 years ago. This new video was her now. I’m used to all of us aging. This is not ONLY about aging. Something else really big had shifted. I was bummed at first. Where are the inapropriate jokes? Where’s the banter? where’s the rocker vibe? And then I followed the new video and realized her teaching had gotten even better. She was suggesting small adjustments that were gentler on my body. I was relieved that no one had stollen the instructor’s identity. And of course this was the same sweet dog 9 years later. As I like to do, I made up a whole story about this instructor. This is ONLY my conjecture, based on my own projections. I decided that between those videos 9 years ago and now, this instructor decided to stop doing the emotional labor of trying to be liked. When she started her youtube channel, she truly enjoyed making those videos. For the first 10 or 20 or even 50 videos, she enjoyed being silly, providing banter, and dressing with a rocker vibe. She felt satisfied expressing real parts of her personality on her channel. She got feedback from her fans that they loved it, so she gave even more of the same. The pressure to get more subscribers and to make a living as an entrepreneur led her to keep performing these parts of her personality. And then little by little, she stopped having fun with it. It started feeling like emotional labor. For a while, she kept performing this way. The videos were popular, and she wasn’t exactly being inauthentic. It was just a little tiring, but work is supposed to be tiring, she told herself. It’s better than working in a mine. But working in this way was feeling less and less sustainable until she began to DREAD making those videos. She decided she either needed to consider letting the whole channel go, or to start doing the videos in a more easeful way. She decided to just teach the yoga. She decided to focus on delivering great yoga instruction, but to let the rest of the effort go. She decided to just stop performing, and wear what felt appealing and comfortable to her NOW. She decided to let people be disappointed by her more boring clothing and lack of jokes. She started with “Let’s start in a seated position.” rather than “OK it’s day seven. Let’s go to heaven!” with a wink. Her voice came out a little lower because that’s how her body was naturally changing AND because she was relaxing into her easiest way of speaking. She decided that this was the only sustainable and joyful way for her to continue. I’m an entrepreneur too, and I can relate to this story. And yes, I haven’t forgotten that I made this story up. I’ve been through a somewhat similar process. My process has shifted how I run my group coaching calls. I used to show up to group coaching calls feeling the need to amp up my personality and lean into the parts of me that made people feel comfortable. I performed warmth. I wanted to show that I was someone you could be yourself with. I tried to bring a lot of energy to calls and show each person that I cared about them. I was self-deprecating. I made lots of jokes. I’d always scan the zoom room for the least satisfied person and try to please them. And then I got tired, and decided to show up to my calls in my more natural state, and stop performing so hard. In my more natural state, I actually DO care about every person I’m working with, but the way that looks when I’m not performing is different. Now I allow myself to breathe. I ask people to take care of themselves. At the beginning of just about every call, I ask people to take a breath, notice if there’s anything hanging over their head, and then to jot it down or otherwise let it go so they can be more present. Then I ask them to take another breath and see if there is an intention they’d like to set. My focus in my coaching now is on being clear, giving honest and helpful feedback and asking questions that will help each person make their own best decisions in their businesses. I’m fairly obsessed with doing that well. That’s part of how I love. The feedback I’m MOST interested in now is what outcome participants are getting, and NOT how much they like me. When I was performing care with more effort, my focus was, in a certain way, on me. When I’m serving and in more of my realness, I provide authentic care without translating it into a performance. It’s TRULY OK with me now if I am not every person’s cup of tea. The funny thing is though, I was never every person’s cup of tea anyway. I wonder if folks who were coached by me back 5 or 10 years ago would notice a big change in how I behave now. I wonder if they would see me as less vibrant. Or just less anxious. I share all of this of course to invite you to ask yourself what you want to give yourself permission to stop performing. I’d love to know what you come up with. Show notes at
/episode/index/show/therapistclubhouse/id/31368562