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S2E8 with Leadership Coach & LCSW Tina Greenbaum
146 Plays1 year ago
Want to do a magic trick?
Imagine your favorite food.
How does that thought feel in your body?
Ok, nice job. Now think of your least favorite food.
How does that thought feel?
For me: Mac and cheese gives me warm, happy feelings. Cilantro (gross) - my stomach clenches and my throat tightens.
Tina Greenbaum LCSW, executive performance coach, and CEO of the Master Under Pressure program, posed the above questions when I asked if there is anything leaders can do right at this moment to get in touch with their intuition, inner wisdom and guidance at work.
TL;DR:
→ Situations that give you the favorite food feeling = things are in alignment.
→ Least-fave food feeling = something isn’t quite right. You might want to get curious about what’s happening below the surface (for you and for the other folks involved).
Tina was a wonderful guest. In addition to that nifty little food trick, we covered:
- Projection, transference, and why leaders are sometimes conflated with tricky parents.
- How breathwork expands your nervous system’s capacity for stress. And helps you make better decisions.
- The power of positive productive thinking.
- Why women at work need boundaries of steel.
- When feeling bored is helpful information.
- Her program, Mastery Under Pressure.
Subscribe to the Content People newsletter: https://meredithfarley.substack.com/
Follow Meredith on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/meredith-farley/
Follow Tina:
On LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tinagreenbaum/
On Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/masteryunderpressure/?hl=en
And check out her Mastery Under Pressure website here: https://masteryunderpressure.com/
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Transcript
Introduction to Podcast and Host
00:00:04
Speaker
Hi and welcome to Content People. I'm your host Meredith Farley. I'm a former chief product officer turned chief operating officer turned CEO and founder. My agency is called Medbury. At Medbury we work with founders, execs, and companies who want to tell their stories and grow. But Content People is not about me or Medbury, it's about the creative leaders and professionals that we interview every week.
00:00:28
Speaker
We'll delve into their journeys, unpack their insights, and ask them for practical advice. If you like it, please rate and subscribe. Let's get started.
Tina's Background and Approach
00:00:37
Speaker
So Tina, for folks who don't know you, can you talk a little bit about who you are and what you do? Who am I and what do I do?
00:00:46
Speaker
I am a psychotherapist by training, but I'm really a teacher at heart. And what I do is I teach the skills that help us to be calm inside so that we can have a very clear mind and make really good decisions under pressure.
00:01:06
Speaker
One thing that I was really interested in when you and I first connected is that you're both a therapist and a coach. And a lot of people have a therapist, a lot of people have a coach, but usually they're separate. How is the experience different when they are one and the same? That's a great question and don't really have a name for myself yet. You try to learn a whole bunch of different ones, but the truth is
00:01:34
Speaker
Traditionally, a psychotherapist is known for going back into history and pulling out the pieces and working a lot on the past to heal the past. I think that's the way a lot of people perceive psychotherapy. I perceive it is I start in the present and start to look at
00:02:00
Speaker
what's not working. We don't have to touch the stuff that's working. We're only looking at the patterns that have been created in the past that are obstacles in the present. So let's just say that we get to name them. And so I noticed that
00:02:21
Speaker
I'm really good with my friends, I feel really strong and people come to me for advice, but when I get in front of my boss, I cave. So then we start to look at, okay, so what happens when that happens? And does it have a history? Does your boss remind you of some other authority figure perhaps that's been in your life?
Insight, Implement, Integrate: A Transformation Process
00:02:44
Speaker
And so very quickly, a lot of times we can identify where the pattern comes from,
00:02:50
Speaker
which is valuable, but we don't need to stay there. So I like to think about transformational work in this way. I call it the three I's. So first comes the insight. And so the insight is, I noticed, oh, I have all this information that's happened to my mother, my father, my sister, my brother. This is how I dealt with anger. This is how I dealt with conflict. This is how I deal with all kinds of things.
00:03:17
Speaker
Okay, so now let's just look at the pieces that we want to shift and change and transform. So then we come into the second eye, which is implement. We're implementing new behaviors, new ideas, new action items. That's where the coaching piece comes in. So
00:03:36
Speaker
We're saying more in the present, we're looking at what's happening here. And then once we have implemented enough of these skills, just like you were an Olympic level athlete, practice and repetition and practice and repetition, we create new neural pathways and then we integrate all the new behaviors. So what used to send me off the wall from when I was a couple of months ago, even now it's, I remember that, but it's just another problem. My body doesn't get triggered.
00:04:07
Speaker
So it's identify, implement and integrate. You got it.
00:04:12
Speaker
Okay, and the way it would be a little different than just working with a coach is that under the identify stage, you're helping them excavate the past a little bit to understand, okay, not just we acknowledge this is a problem, how we're gonna fix it, but what's the source of that particular challenge for you? Isn't that right? And the value honestly of my therapy skills is sometimes those, we can identify them, but knowing how to shift them,
00:04:40
Speaker
is really the art of therapy. I see it as a mind and a body experience and my whole career has been about how do I get under the conscious mind because it's the unconscious that drives all behavior and how do I help somebody shift that so that their
00:05:00
Speaker
feelings and thoughts go along with this new alignment.
Therapeutic Approaches in Work Environments
00:05:04
Speaker
And I did a TEDx talk last year and it was called, befriend your inner enemy. And it was really about, we've got these patterns that show up over and over and over again. I'd love to change them. I just don't know how to do it. And that's what I'm really good at teaching.
00:05:21
Speaker
I really like that aspect of the work you do because I think sometimes when it comes to work, people have become in general, in society, so much more interested in and open and accepting about therapy. But when it comes to work, there's such a boundary and our unconscious drives are just not mined in the same way or talked about. So I really love that you're pulling that therapy background and thinking into
00:05:50
Speaker
solving problems at work and helping people evolve in their interpersonal interactions. When you were talking earlier, I was thinking about advice I give to new managers often.
00:06:00
Speaker
Which is get ready because you are now an authority figure no matter what you do. Just by idol, you're going to upset someone because you look a little bit like their mom or something like that. And it's really hard. And I think it's helpful for leaders to be mindful of those things. I don't know if you have any thoughts on that or advice for leaders who sometimes are like, yeah, I thought that was a regular interaction, but that person really freaked out.
00:06:24
Speaker
And that's a brilliant observation on your part. In therapy, we call it transference. We're transferring our feelings, unconscious thoughts and feelings, onto somebody else. And that is the projection. That's exactly what you said. There's also counter-transference where I'm experiencing something from you that's unconscious in my history.
00:06:53
Speaker
and you're activating something in me, you're triggering me as the manager or the authority figure. So therefore, it's incredibly important for the manager, the leader, to know themselves really well. I really believe you cannot do this level of work unless you do it yourself. There's a wonderful saying there. You cannot take a person to a place that you haven't been.
00:07:20
Speaker
Yeah, no, I totally agree with that deep inner work. It's imperative if you're going to be a competent manager and have a good experience for yourself and for other folks. So I think that's really, thank you for explaining all those things. And I do want to come back to your TED talk, befriend your inner enemy. I really loved it. And I watched it again in prep for this interview. There was one thing I wanted to ask about. You were talking about work you were doing, I think it was decades ago with young women who had eating disorders.
00:07:50
Speaker
And when you were listening to them, you were being good therapists and listening actively, but you had a thought to the effect, I hear you, but I don't feel you. And that really resonated with me. I wondered if I could ask you to talk about that a little bit more, what that means, and then how that thought sent you on a really interesting path in your work.
Authentic Communication and Engagement
00:08:11
Speaker
So going back to what we were just talking about,
00:08:14
Speaker
my training as a clinician was really about what was going on with me that would give me information about what was going on with somebody else. Let's imagine that I'm having a really good day and you come in and your mic's lying and all of a sudden I'm just feeling really anxious.
00:08:32
Speaker
He said, I wasn't anxious before he walked in. I must be picking it up from my client. So then that gives me the insight to be able to say, I wonder if you're feeling really anxious.
00:08:45
Speaker
And they're gonna say, oh my God, how did you know that? I'm picking it up. I pick up people's anger. Or they may not even be feeling angry, and I'm feeling angry, and I'm holding their anger. So there's a lot that goes on again in the training. But at that point, I was a random therapist.
00:09:04
Speaker
And I didn't really know a lot about this mind body. I didn't know anything about this mind body stuff. My traditional training was very good, but it was really that active listening and what's going on inside of me. So what I would notice is I would just get bored listening to somebody. Again, I'm not putting a judgment on it. I'm just noticing. I'm losing you. I'm losing interest. I'm starting to look at something out the window and why is that? Why is that?
00:09:34
Speaker
When somebody is being real and authentic, we feel it. It's a presence. It's an energy. It's indescribable in terms of words, but I'm engaged. I want to hear the next thing that you have to say. Are you with me? Are we together?
00:09:57
Speaker
when we have that level of communication, then as a clinician or as a manager or as a coach, I am being heard and maybe you're hearing me and maybe we can actually do some work together. So I would just get that sense that they were talking to my mother, my father, my sister, my brother, I know all this history and yes, we can, great, what are you gonna do about it? And how am I gonna be the instrument
00:10:27
Speaker
to lead you and guide you to be able to heal. So when you would feel bored, was it, it was because maybe they weren't fully engaged? Is that, am I understanding it right? They were just like the root thing that they thought. Mocking from their head, talking heads. When you go to a networking event or some kind of thing and it's just chit chat and you're just flitting to one place to the next and then somebody comes along and they, they stand there and they say,
00:10:56
Speaker
tell me about you. It's a different experience, right? Somebody is seeing me, somebody's hearing me, somebody's feeling me, and that makes me want to engage with you. It's that alignment, that authenticity that we get from somebody who is connected to themselves
00:11:17
Speaker
connected to their feelings, not afraid to open up. I love that. So you recognize that when you felt that engagement, it was because they were engaged. It was a meaningful exchange and you were on the right path. And when you didn't feel it, and when you felt bored, it wasn't you losing your, it wasn't you not paying enough attention. It was your body telling you, this isn't right. We got to shift something here. Is that right? That's exactly right. And
00:11:46
Speaker
learning how to trust your body and the messages that it gives you, it's incredibly accurate. My ex doesn't used to say to me all the time, if you're too sensitive, or I was just a joke, or it's not my body that, it's my body already responded to that, that tone always felt really nasty. Yeah. The body tells all, it really does. I absolutely love that for so many reasons. And I have a few questions on that.
00:12:16
Speaker
in a moment, but I also feel like as you're talking, it's reminding me.
00:12:21
Speaker
that what I love about that approach is that it's, there are times where if I was in a meeting and I was meant to be paying attention, I know it's a meeting, it's not therapy, it's a little different. And I was like, oh, I got a little bored. I would just criticize myself sometimes. I'd be like, God damn it, Meredith, let me pay attention. But actually if you think of it truly as your body being like, this is not authentic. This is not interesting because it's not real.
00:12:47
Speaker
and something you can trust, that's really, I don't know, there's something very comforting and profound about that.
Mindfulness and Present Awareness
00:12:54
Speaker
And I really like that. So one, that topic, I want to bring in what a definition of mindfulness. Now, mindfulness has gotten very she-she and thrown around and it's an ancient practice, an ancient practice. And the definition that I love, I didn't make it up, but I think it's the most accurate that I've heard. It's being aware in the present moment,
00:13:17
Speaker
without judgment. So we get into so much trouble thinking that it's all about us. Sometimes it is, and it's a good place to start. Is it me? But if I'm like, I'm just sitting here and I'm listening and I have no interest in this, maybe I'm bored. I'm just bored. It's just an analytical
00:13:40
Speaker
Now I'm bored, why am I bored? And then is there something I can do about it and blah, blah. So when we're non-judgmental, we have a whole array of options of ways that we can respond. But when we bring it down to ourselves and we make ourselves one, then we're stuck in a hole. Yeah, and like through judgment, cutting ourselves off from our own wisdom. One question I have for you is when you talk about
00:14:08
Speaker
feelings being locked in the body. And I think in your TEDx talk, you talked about the idea that thoughts are in the mind and feelings are in the body. I'm curious for advice you have about how leaders could leverage the info that their body is giving. Again, yes, you're going to be just the greatest at this because you have such good questions.
00:14:29
Speaker
Thank you. Thank you very much. Number one, Jessica, going back on what we just said, if I trust my body that it's giving me information, I just trust it. I don't get interpretation about it. So in other words, I just recognize that I'm getting triggered. Okay. Then it's my responsibility. What's that about?
00:14:55
Speaker
So if I go back to that example, I was feeling fine in the morning, you know, this client comes in now, or one of my employees comes in. Now I'm feeling really anxious. Is it mine? So I start to ask myself these questions. Is it mine? No, it's not mine. I was really feeling fine before that. Or it is mine because I was anxious before I came in and I can't really separate yet. Please is what? So I have me first.
00:15:25
Speaker
and then pay attention to what's happening to the person in front of me. But it's like a Geiger counter. It's like the magic wand that takes me over here and then it takes me over there. And once you are so disciplined with how you work with your thoughts, which is another topic that's really important, because we're talking about the body, number one,
00:15:48
Speaker
And then the mind, the thoughts, they go hand in hand. And when my body's feeling one thing, like I'm feeling really bored, and then I'm telling myself, oh, this is just the greatest thing in the world. And this person is so smart. There's a misalignment here. And so the body, again, knows that it doesn't feel right. It doesn't resonate. So we're looking for that resonance
00:16:15
Speaker
what I see and what I feel, they're in alignment. What I'm saying out of my mouth is in alignment with what's happening inside of me. Or this is happening inside of me and this is not a very smart time for me to share my feelings.
00:16:32
Speaker
Okay. Yes. When it feels in alignment, what you're thinking, what you're feeling that you would take that as generally meaning. Okay. Yes. I'm, I have a good understanding and I'm grounded and clear-eyed in this situation. But when your thoughts and your feelings are not in alignment.
00:16:50
Speaker
You don't necessarily need to immediately place a judgment on it and say, Oh, I think it's because XYZ, but it's more something to be curious about. Oh, there's a little something under the surface here. Is that right? That's exactly right. And sometimes we can catch it right away. And sometimes it's elusive. And I may not have the time in that moment. Just like, why was that bothering me so much? But then I'm going to go back and I'm going to work on it.
00:17:17
Speaker
because when we're upset with somebody, it's usually something about them that is triggering this in me. It's very easy to blame people. We do that all the time. It's only they would do this, and if only they would do that, and if only they... Okay, so what is it about them that is triggering this in me, which gets into our value system and belief systems that it's complicated, gone on, but I want your people to really understand that
00:17:44
Speaker
Once we have an understanding of how the mind and the body work, that they're two different systems, and we learn how to work with both of them, then it becomes simple.
00:17:58
Speaker
For someone who's interested to delve into this a little bit more, are there tiny little steps they could take this week to just be more aware of the alignment that they might be in or not in? Absolutely. So again, if you think about your favorite food, tell me what your favorite food is. Probably macaroni and cheese.
00:18:21
Speaker
Macaroni and cheese. And so as you close your eyes and feel macaroni and cheese, how does that feel? Tingly and warm and good. Okay. I would make more of a physical response to that than I would have expected. Okay. Now think of the food that you actually dislike. Cilantro. Hate cilantro. Okay. Now run that through your body. How does that feel?
00:18:49
Speaker
Disgusting. Repulsive. Like I felt my throat tighten. I was like, oh no. How quick is that? It's so interesting. That's wild. Everyone listening should do that. That felt like magic. That's really cool. So we have a guy. Okay. Right here. Something's off.
00:19:10
Speaker
I don't know what it is yet, but something is definitely off in this situation.
Trusting Bodily Reactions in Decision-Making
00:19:14
Speaker
This explanation doesn't feel right. I don't think they're telling you the truth. Now, the other important thing about this is because all perception is run through our own system and our own histories, we can have a really great hunch about somebody and why they're doing something or what they're doing, but they're the only ones that can actually say, you hit the nail on the head.
00:19:40
Speaker
Otherwise, really great intuition is just a great assumption. It's a punch. But if I say to you, I know exactly what you're thinking, I do not. I can't work.
00:19:53
Speaker
I think that's so interesting, that last point, because I think other folks listening might have had similar experiences where there were times in my professional life where people I was working with or working for, I would get the cilantro feeling, but I could never, they're not going to say, yeah, I'm taking advantage of you and being really cruel. They weren't folks who were going to say, yeah, your intuition about me is right.
00:20:23
Speaker
But I think that because it was not fact and it would have been disruptive to my life to take action on it, I for a really long time let myself just know I had bad feelings, but maybe not always trust them and think there was a mystery or maybe some other solution out there I wasn't seeing and stayed in situations I wish I'd left sooner because I couldn't prove what I was feeling.
00:20:53
Speaker
I don't know if there's a right or wrong there, but I guess in line with what you're saying, I think in the future in my life, I'll be more likely, even when I can't solve the mystery to be like, the vibes are off and I'm out. That's it. Once you get a pattern.
00:21:07
Speaker
Yeah, that's just a one shot deal. But this is happening over and over again. I mean, just as I said, sometimes it's really worthwhile to go back and talk to the person and try to clear it. But sometimes those people are not available because they're not operating at the same conscious level that you're operating. So you're going to get you're not going to get satisfaction.
00:21:29
Speaker
Right. We're seeing in the world from a very different point of view than you are. And that's when we start to have to learn how to trust. Again, we're not in alignment at all. We're not having this conversation. I'm over here and you're over there and it's time for me to go.
00:21:46
Speaker
So another thing that I wanted to ask about, which is also related to TEDxTalk, was you talked about a cut, reframe, and respond approach. And I thought it was very interesting. And I was wondering if you could talk about it a little bit and what that means. So we don't have a camera, but I'm showing you Meredith this little, it's a little magnet that I made and it's available.
00:22:08
Speaker
All you have to do is send me your address in the postage and I'll send it to you to put on your refrigerator. So I think about behavior and all the things that are going on in our lives. It's like a movie, right? Everything's moving very fast and we just don't catch everything that's really happening. But body will tell me when something is off.
00:22:31
Speaker
whether it's a tone or this or that or whatever, Martin's gonna give me information first, and then nanoseconds later, the thought comes. Okay, so here I recognize I'm getting triggered. So I stop, we stop the movie, we cut, just like you were cutting a movie scene that's happening. We just stop, and then we notice.
00:22:56
Speaker
And so the reframe, so it's cut, reframe. So I'm looking at the thoughts and the feelings that are running through my body, just exactly what we've been talking about, trying to make sense out of them. And then I'm going to reframe my answer. So let's just say I get triggered. I'm really pissed off. All right, now I'm running this through my body. I recognize I'm really pissed off. I don't like that statement that you just gave me. I don't like that tone of voice.
00:23:24
Speaker
I'm putting it into a context and now I'm going to choose how to respond to that. I may say something to you when you said that, that really hurt my feeling. Or my husband always says to me, I don't like that tone of voice. Or I may say to him, I don't really like that tone of voice. Or it may be another situation of you were just talking about at work. I'm going to choose not to respond right now. I'm just going to make a note of this.
00:23:52
Speaker
Yes, I think that's really helpful. How can you tell I'm triggered right now? What are the signs that you're triggered? So this is where mastery under pressure comes in. Okay. So when we're hitting that stress response, so let's just say that we have so much capacity to tolerate stress.
00:24:14
Speaker
Again, everybody can't see my hands, but they're parallel to each other, maybe about five inches apart. And as long as we call this the window of tolerance, and as long as I'm in this window, I'm good.
Expanding Stress Tolerance for Effective Management
00:24:25
Speaker
Stuff comes along, I can handle it. But as soon as my nervous system hits its capacity for stress, I go into the stress response. So with the stress response and everybody may trigger, feel it a little bit differently. And it's really important for each person to know how it shows up in your body.
00:24:43
Speaker
But in my body, it's my neck and my shoulders. Everything gets tight. The muscles get tight. And depending on how serious the threat is, we go into that. Everything goes to the heart. All the blood is going to the heart to get us ready for the fight, flight, or freeze response.
00:25:07
Speaker
So the adrenaline starts to pour through our bodies and our brains. We cannot think clearly. I just had a car accident a couple of weeks ago and all the aftermath of it has really challenged my level of tolerance for stress.
00:25:25
Speaker
and my neck and my shoulders bother me a bit, so as soon as the stress hits, boom, right here in my shoulders, okay, I can't think clearly. And that's the most important thing for people to recognize is when your brain, because your brain goes offline, literally, okay? And again, you can't see a picture of what I'm holding here, but if you would imagine that your brain is your fist, and the lower part of your brain is that your instinctual part,
00:25:53
Speaker
And then in the middle part of the brain is our limbic system, which manages all our emotions and it holds this particular activating system and you're low, which is the point of the brain that is always on alert. Okay. And if there's no danger, then the front part of the brain, which is the forehead, which is our prefrontal cortex, this is our executive branch.
00:26:16
Speaker
this is the part that sinks our waist when things this is where we hold logic under great stress okay all the blood comes to the heart and and races and the system is so activated the grain goes off the prefrontal cortex goes offline it's not available to us and for managers and people in high-pressure situations
00:26:41
Speaker
parents, any of us, that need to be able to be calm, cool, and collected under pressure, we need to be able to expand our nervous system's tolerance for stress. So here comes the stress. No, not. It's just another problem.
00:26:59
Speaker
How can we do that? Are there ways to expand your ability to handle stress?
Mastery Under Pressure Program Overview
00:27:05
Speaker
Absolutely. So this is where the mind-body situation comes in. And this is what my whole program, Master Under Pressure, is about. We start out with the body, learning how to meditate, how to breathe, how to initiate the relaxation response.
00:27:21
Speaker
is through our breath. Our breath is the only, everybody will say, everybody knows when you're feeling nervous, take a breath. But frequently we take the breath from way up in the upper chest, which exacerbates the stress and can put us into hyperventilation. We have to learn how to breathe from way down deep in the belly and bring the breath all the way up and then release it. It's a three part breath.
00:27:45
Speaker
I teach all of those things of how to calm the body down, and then we move to the mind. Then I start to recognize my thoughts. Rather than positive thinking, I call it productive thinking. Do my thoughts produce something useful for me? And that's where that non-judgmental, how can I look at the silver lining, this terrible accident that I was in, okay, so now they're gonna pay me to buy a new car.
00:28:12
Speaker
You know, the guy who was at the auto shop, I know him pretty well. And he's, we start talking about what I do and he says, you know, I'd love you to come in and do a course for my, my employees. So I get business. Yeah. Right. So always looking at as bad as it was, I'm okay. So training ourselves that mind is like a temple.
00:28:34
Speaker
And so if we fill it with a lot of negative down trodden thoughts, that's the way we're going to, that's the way our energy is going to be. That's the way that we're going to feel badly. People are not going to want to hang around us and so on. So focus, relaxation, dealing with negative self-talk, how to visualize and then dealing with fear. And that's how Olympic level athletes train for high competition.
00:28:59
Speaker
I've read the book, The Mindful Athlete by George Mumford. Are you familiar with that one? Are you with it? Yes, I am. I love it. I actually talked about it, or I wrote about it in my newsletter a few weeks ago. It had a big response. I was like, oh, people are interested in this. And I don't think I totally connected that to all of your work. Just for folks who are curious, could you, so you've already talked a little bit about mastery under pressure, but for anyone who's interested in it, what should they know about the program?
00:29:26
Speaker
For one thing that George Mumford was Jordan, Michael Jordan's mindfulness coach. And when Michael Jordan started, and the guy came, when George Munson came in the beginning, and he said, we're going to meditate Michael Jordan's in the eye. You got to be kidding with this. He became a
00:29:41
Speaker
is actually a profound seeker and gives a lot of his success to this program. So Mastery Under Pressure is designed to help you learn how to create peak performance experiences.
00:29:58
Speaker
A lot of times people talk about, oh, I was in the flow and it was the greatest thing and I don't know how I got there and I'll never get back. We do know how you got there. You may not know. There are conscious ways that we can teach you how to create that peak performance experience. So that's one piece. And most importantly, it is really learning how to preserve your body and your brain so that you can work at your optimal level
00:30:28
Speaker
and become model citizens and honestly parents.
Balancing Professional Boundaries and Self-Care for Women
00:30:35
Speaker
I have this really great passion and desire to teach these skills because when we're teaching the next generation, how amazing would that be if we were all on the same page and these kids had the skills to be. And the problem with so many of the youth today and so much of the violence in it is they don't know how to regulate your feeling.
00:30:57
Speaker
They get angry and then come out the guns comes out the rage and there's no self regulation. So this is really what we're talking about is how to self regulate your emotions. No matter what, no matter what.
00:31:13
Speaker
Well, we will, in the show notes, throw the link to your Master Under Pressure website and your LinkedIn so that folks who are interested could reach out. And a lot of the listeners of disproportionate amount are women between the ages of 24 to 35. And one of the final questions I wanted to ask is, in your work, are there themes or common stumbling blocks that you see among the professional women that you might work with?
00:31:43
Speaker
Yes, and yes. Being a woman number one, and I just hit my 40th anniversary of how long I've been doing this works. Oh my gosh, congratulations. That's incredible. That's crazy. But we women have very similar characteristics over generations and generations. We are by nature
00:32:06
Speaker
We're gatherers, we're nurturers, we're caretakers. It's in our DNA and all these wonderful qualities. But if we don't learn that concept of boundaries, they become really kind of way to our detriment and become very dysfunctional. So there is a saying actually in my profession, they call it compassion fatigue.
00:32:33
Speaker
Sometimes we're so compassionate and we're so caring and we're so loving and we're so this and we're so that we burn ourselves out. So we have to learn how to say no. We have to learn how to have people be mad at us and not pleased with us because again, we're people pleasers in general. Again, this is a big generalization. The other side of it is that women working to break that glass ceiling
00:33:02
Speaker
and in competition with men, we're not men, and men do things very differently. They are, in general, more assured than we are. So if they're negotiating for something, I'm worth all this money, and we women diminish ourselves. Am I really worth it? Have I really earned it? Have I so much of it, again, is learning to find our voice?
00:33:27
Speaker
and be very clear about our abilities not to diminish ourselves and to be in your own right. There's a wonderful book, I read it years and years ago, it's called Reviving Ophelia.
00:33:45
Speaker
And it's a story about how it was written by psychologists who did all this research. And girls, up to the age of about fifth grade, we compete, or grade in math, if you're grade in math, or science, or running, or this or that. And then when we get into junior high, the junior high becomes the, she calls it the second family. The peer group becomes stronger than the original family. So fitting in.
00:34:13
Speaker
And I remember those 13, 14, 15-year-old years, worried about my weight. How do I look? How do I get into crowds? And then we lose ourselves. And then by the time girls get to high school, it's like they're falling behind in math. They're falling behind in science. They're falling behind in sports. They're fine. And then we have got the phones and all the social media and input.
00:34:40
Speaker
As women, just all the work that we talked about before, Meredith is in terms of learning, who am I? Who am I? And doing your best to become that authentic person. And it involves personal growth, hitting the obstacles, doing things differently. You cannot do this work alone.
00:35:05
Speaker
Really? It's really hard to do alone. One of the things that I'm doing is my group is we're selling, my program is we're, we're selling it so that somebody, it could be like a book club. Oh cool. When for them to get together, a bunch of people can get together and train to being a facilitator for it and being accountable to one another with the homework. And it takes you through all the skills that you need to be able to be really quite masterful.
00:35:31
Speaker
That's incredible. That's, that's the gist. I've heard of reviving Ophelia, but I don't, I've never read it, but now I'm going to go order it after this and give it a read. What you said really resonated with me. Like seventh grade was the worst year of my life so far. Just existing in that world felt so hard. And now I'm 36. We didn't have texting until I was in high school. And I think, oh my God, being a 12, 13, 14 year old girl with that cell phones, texting, social media, I cannot imagine how
00:36:01
Speaker
complex it is. I'm so grateful for all the wisdom that you shared and for talking those things through with me. Is there anything that I didn't ask that maybe you would want people to know or to say? People ask me all the time if I had one thing to share with them and to walk away with. It's this, when we get into a situation that feels challenging, first question I ask myself is what's in my control? What's out of my control?
00:36:31
Speaker
All anxiety and all stress is about the uncertainty and feeling like we're not in charge.
00:36:40
Speaker
writing that now, all about uncertainty and learning how to live in a world of uncertainty. We like facts. We like to know what we're doing. We like to know what things that we want to be able to predict. Anything happens. And I, again, with this accident and I've got other stuff that's been going on in my family and all kinds of stuff going on right now, it's like, all right, what's in my control? What's out of my control? So I got a lot of stuff that's out of my control right now.
00:37:08
Speaker
And okay, so now that's out of my, what can I do with that? We have a hot tub downstairs in this building that I live. I can go in a hot tub. I know hot tub relieves these shoulders. So it's a constant being in connection with yourself and navigating from moment to moment, the choices that we make, the things that come out of our mouth, priorities that we take. But it all starts out with that question, what's in my control, what's out of my control?
00:37:38
Speaker
So that's what I'd leave you with. Thank you so much, Tina. I'm very grateful for your time and for everything that you shared. Thank you. Life's lesson. All right, folks. I hope that you enjoyed that episode. Thank you so much for listening. If you liked it, please subscribe or review us. And if you want to check out our newsletter, Content People, it is in the show notes. See you next time. Bye.