Live Like a Girl with Dr. Mindy Pelz - How to Destroy What Is Holding You Back So You Can Live the Life You Want - With Katherine Wintsch

Episode Date: July 18, 2022

For full show notes, resources mentioned, and transcripts go to: www.drmindypelz.com/ep130/ To enroll in Dr. Mindy's Fasting membership go to: resetacademy.drmindypelz.com This episode is about the concepts many of us use daily that create suffering in our lives. Plus, Katherine gives tips and tricks to make life less daunting.  Katherine dedicates her life to making the lives of mothers easier. In her role as founder and CEO of The Mom Complex, she helps the largest companies in the world such as Walmart, Johnson & Johnson, and Airbnb better understand and support their mom customers and employees. And in her latest venture, Katherine combines 10+ years of groundbreaking research on motherhood with her own personal journey in her popular book Slay Like a Mother. Parade magazine recently named Slay Like a Mother, one of the "top 10 life-changing self-help books of the year" and Katherine's research has been featured by The Today Show, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Fast Company. Katherine is a recipient of the "Working Mother of the Year" award by the Advertising Women of New York, the "Outstanding Woman" award from the YWCA, and most recently a "Woman of the Decade" award from the Women's Economic Forum in India. Please see our medical disclaimer.

What I want women to know is that if you're struggling, you're winning. Like, good job. Like everyone struggles, you know? And so the goal is to struggle without suffering. And there is a difference between the two. Resetters, Dr. Mindy here. And I am on a mission to teach you just how powerful your body was built to be. This podcast is about giving you the power back and help.

helping you believe in yourself again. Let's jump in. Okay, resetters, I have a really special podcast for you today. It is an interview with Catherine Winch, who is the author of Slay Like a mother. Now, if you're not a mom, I don't want you to run away because what we talk about needs to be heard by every woman. At the core of her book is the concepts that so many of us use every day that creates suffering in our lives. Concepts like people pleasing. How many of us are running around trying to please everyone in our life? Or what about that inner critic inside your head that just keeps talking to you and telling you harsh things that cause you more pain? Or what about the unrealistic expectations that we set for ourselves? And when we do get a win, we never celebrate it.

we go on to the next win. This is the depth of conversation that I had with Catherine. And man, did I love it. So I really want women to start to step into their power, whatever that means for you. Yet stepping into our power means getting to know ourselves, getting to know our vulnerabilities, getting to know the inner critics in our mind, getting to know what lights us up and what identity and purpose we want to take on in this world. And Catherine and I talk all about this. So this was a really special interview for me. I share a lot about what I'm personally going

through. So you'll get a bird's eye view into the changes that have been happening in my life. But more importantly, I, whether it's fasting, whether it's health, whether it's relationships, I so want you to believe in yourself. And Catherine does an incredible job. of giving you the tools to do that. So Catherine Wynch, so excited to share this with you. I hope you enjoy it. And as always, if you love it, send it out into the world. Write us a review. And please, as women, let's band together and support each other, lift each other up and believe in ourselves again. Enjoy. I appreciate you taking the time. I know how hard it is to write a book, talk about a book, promote a book. And I just am so grateful for you for being here.

So welcome to my podcast and my amazing community. Awesome. I'm thrilled to be here. So I'm going to tell you a little background story about my reaction to the title of your book. So when I saw the title of your book, I have a 22-year-old and a 19-year-old. And just so you all know what the title of Catherine's book is, it's Slay Like a Mother. And the first reaction I had was, I'm not a mother anymore. Right?

And so I have a 22-year-old and a 19-year-old that have officially been launched, you know, in ish. We're still taking the training wheels of adulthood off. But I think the bigger thing that I really resonated with is the loss of identity. And I have this year been going through how my role is a mother. mother has really changed as we have become empty nesters. So can we can we start with and this idea that we are bigger than the roles we play and what happens when that role changes and how do you adapt to that? How do you find a new role or a new version of yourself in an old role? Yeah, I love everything that you're saying. And, you know, what I believe is, you know,

once a mom, always a mom. And just because, you know, your children are in their 20s, they're still going to need help. They're still going to need your advice. I mean, I was 25 years old calling my mother crying because I couldn't get pregnant. And she didn't know what to do. She didn't know what to say. She'd never had a child that couldn't get pregnant before. And I think it took her in a good way back into the mothering role. But also, it just goes to show you that as mothers, like we're never going to have it figured out. Like once we figure out the toddler year, they become teenagers. Once we figure out the teenage years, they've become, and then we're empty nesters. And that identity crisis, you know, occurs for so many women because we're so involved, for the most part, as mothers.

And we're running and dragging and dropping and worrying. And then when those children are, you know, removed from the home, I mean, a lot of women really, really suffer and don't know who they are and what they should do with their time. And I always tell any nonprofit, go after the empty nest around. Because, you know, when people want us to be on boards and want us to be involved in nonprofits, but I have two teenagers, that's very hard for me to do right now, you know. But I think, you know, giving back to your community, giving back to nonprofits, finding, you know, people become painters. They become artists. And it's hard to have a hobby when you're, you know, have children in your home.

And so I think there's a lot of possibility, but you have to be. secure enough in yourself that your whole identity didn't just walk out of your home. To me, the most startling part of the whole empty nester change was that I didn't see it coming. And I think that's the hard part that a lot of women is that we have roles in our life that give us so much meaning. I mean, being a mother gave me so, it gave me meaning. It gave me friends. it gave me, you know, opportunities for growth, so many things.

And so when those rules change, I think it's really hard because we have to re-get to know ourselves differently. It's fascinating to hear you say that, though, because I think this is part of the problem with women in general. And I'm including all of us in that. Like, the fact that you could say, I didn't see it coming when it has happened to every single, woman since the beginning of time. But menopause is the same thing, right? We all say, I didn't see it coming. But it's like Christmas always happens on 25th of December. Children

always leave the home. Women always go through menopause. But I think we are so scared to talk about the hard parts of our life. You know, we all walk around and it's all smiles and nods and everything's fine. And I think it's a real disservice to the women who are coming behind us, you know, who are going to have to go through this. So as I mentioned, I have two teenagers. I can't stop talking about how hard it is because I didn't hear other women necessarily say that. I heard about it in general.

But I think if we're brave enough to say becoming an empty nest or is hard, I don't know who I am, it's going to give a little runway to the women coming behind us to say, okay, maybe I need to be a little bit more prepared for this. I just think as women, we just don't do a good job of sharing the hard parts of our life, which then makes everyone else feel like they're the only person who has ever gone through this. Yeah. It's just a shame. It's so well said.

And where my brain goes with that is what's the difference between sharing from your heart and bitching about your situation? As women, a lot of times we like to get together and bitch about different things. going on. And I have found over the years, if I get together and bitch about something, it only makes the problem worse. It gives it energy, it magnifies it, and it grows it into something bigger. But sharing grief, sharing struggles, what's the different, just help us all understand, like, what is the difference in that communication style when we want to be vulnerable with somebody? I think that's a great point. And I believe in energy. And I think if you put too much negative energy, you know, it's just coming right back at you.

And but I think it's about language. And so I think if you're with your girlfriends and you open up and you are confiding in them to say, here's what I'm struggling with. That's a very healthy place because you're saying, you know, who has advice for me? You're open for feedback. And maybe it's not you mouthing off. It's just saying this is what I'm struggling with right now. And then allow your friends to remind you how great you are, how much you've

accomplish how much you be cheap you know maybe they went through something similar so i do think it's a difference in um taking all the air in the room you know and just bitching versus almost like receiving from other people this is what i'm struggling with because there is something powerful of um releasing our struggles out into the universe because as soon as you say it out loud it has less power over you it has less control over you. And I just think since the dawn of time, yes, we have our bitch sessions. But for the most part, you know, in my research, it's women just like stay silent. And it's for a lot of reasons, it's I don't want the negative energy. I don't want, you know, fuel to the fire. But also, a lot of it is ego. I don't want people to think that I have, you know, struggles and problems.

And so, but it's, it's healthy because I think somebody said recently, I was watching a TV interview and they said that you are as sick as your secrets. And I was like, whoa. Whoa. That's good. You know, it's, and let's just say you're struggling in your marriage. You don't have to, you know, share every, you know, single detail of your relationship and all the problems with it. but I think if you can just say out loud that I'm struggling with my marriage, like, you're in control now.

You're not powerless to not pushing it down. Do you think men and women approach their struggles differently? Yes, I do. And I think it all begins with the way we speak to ourselves inside. And so in my research, what I have found that, you know, every human being has a critical voice inside of their head. And when I do an exercise in my workshop with women, and I'll ask them to write down the last terrible thing that you said to yourself.

And my therapist had me do that. I'm a huge fan of therapy about eight years ago. She had me write whatever that was for me down. And at the time, I wrote, and I quote, you are a poor excuse for a strong woman. That was the last terrible thing that I said to myself. And so I started asking women all over the world, what was the last thing? thing and it's awful it's terrible it's you're fat you're ugly it's a miracle anybody loves you i mean awful you're ruining your children and so when i ask men to do the same thing what i have found

is that for men i'm i'm generalizing here obviously there are lots of nuances but for men the voice tends to be critical and for women it's cruel and so there's some benefit to having a critical voice inside your head. But for men, a lot of times it's like, come on, buddy, do better. You know, it's practically encouraging, you know, where with women, I think the way we speak to ourselves is so horrible and so cutthroat and so ugly. And so I do think that that affects how we deal with our struggles. So if you think you're a poor excuse for a strong woman, you're probably not going to say out loud that you're struggling. But I think men are more likely to say it out loud, move on. on where women, it just, you know, it cuts deeper, it hurts more. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Well said. So what do we do

if our self-talk is really bad? And, you know, I, with the menopausal women that we work with in our community, I've really been conscious to work on reprogramming the way that they look at their body and the way that they look at health. Like, I'm a personal believer that the scale is never going to point you in a good direction. So you have to redefine it and look at it differently. Is there a way that we can start to redefine that voice in our head and not take it so personal? Definitely. So in my book, say like a mother, I talk about this dragon of self-doubt that we have inside of us. And again, regardless of age, I mean, you can be 85 and have this and you can be 15 and have it. But what I say about this dragon of self-doubt, this negative self-talk that lives inside of you is that you're

never going to get it completely to go away. So that's unrealistic to think that all of a sudden I'm just going to be paying myself compliments 24 hours a day. But you can teach it some manners. And I'll give you an example. So I'm a fan of, you know, riding like a stationary bike and a, you know, hotel gym. And so sometimes if I was traveling, you know, for a book talk or for work or something, and old habits die hard. So I spent 20 years of my life yelling at myself all the times and I wasn't good enough and I've gotten a lot better at it. But it popped up recently where I was on exercise bike hotel gym. And when I was done exercising, I rested my hands kind of on the top of my backside. And I felt what felt like two handfuls of cellulite. And so the negative voice in

my head said, what must that look like? And I'm looking around. Like can everybody see my cellulite? You know. And so the first tip is you have to hear it. Because you can't correct it if you are unconscious of it. So I heard the voice say, what must that look like? And then I corrected it. And I said, what this looks like is that I got my ass out of bed and put it on a bike. That's what this looks like. And so you might have to do that in the beginning 50 times a day.

Hear it correct it. Here it correct it. Here it correct it. And it's a practice. And over time, those negative voices, you know, will pop up less frequently because you're teaching it, you know, some manners. But it really, really does work. But honestly, it's, you have to hear it. So many women are walking this earth and have no idea that they are yelling at themselves all day.

Yeah. Are you familiar with Michael Singer's untethered soul? Yes. Yes. Yes. And what he's cashed? Yes. you go. No, his new book is amazing. I don't know if you've read the living untethered. He has a new book.

And it's, so he has three books. I've read them all, but the new one is living untethered. And it's all about the application of what you just said or a lot of it. But the first book, Untethered Soul, what the concept of a neurotic roommate in our head, if we had a roommate that talked to us, the way we talked to ourselves, we would leave that apartment. We wouldn't, we wouldn't hang around. But because it's in our own head, we, we, we take it as truth. Yep. Yes. It is. And, you know, we think as women and mothers that we are so tired because of the physical demand on our life, right? The carpels, the dragging, the dropping, the moving kids to college, you know, whatever it is. But I don't think that's why we're tired.

I think we are exhausted because we are not only doing those things, but on top of those activities, we think we suck at the vast majority of them. And so, yes, we're making dinner all the time, but then it's like, well, your children don't even eat vegetables. You suck, you know. And it's this constant grind that I think actually makes our souls tired. You know, our bodies are tired from the physicality of, you know, being a woman and a mother. But, you know, in my book, I talk about the difference between struggling and suffering. So struggling is brought on by the external circumstances in your life.

going through menopause, having a breast cancer diagnosis, having children, all the things, struggling with your marriage, those are all struggles. And you're never going to get rid of them. You're going to have struggles until the day you die. But we suffer when we yell at ourselves for having those struggles in the first place or we think that we're not handling them as well as we should. And so what I want women to know is that if you're struggling, you're winning. Like, good job. Like everyone struggles, you know. And so the goal is to struggle without suffering. And there is a,

there's a difference between the two. How do, how do you, how do you know the difference? I mean, honestly, it's what, or it's literally internal external.

So, you know, is it like, am I, I'm struggling because I've been diagnosed, you know, with breast cancer, but I'm suffering because I'm fast forwarding to this

doomsday future or I'm not asking for help. It's, as hard as it, might sound like you suffer at your own hand. So the external world brings on the struggles. And the mean voice in our head or the doomsday, you know, dialogue in our head is what brings on the suffering. And so I always say the struggle is real. We don't want to deny that the struggle is real. But your suffering is optional. I love that. I always say that about menopause symptoms, that your menopause symptoms, uh, it's,

suffering through menopause is an option. You don't have to suffer through menopause. So very similar thing. I think menopause is a perfect topic for this. So, you know, it's hot flashes or you can't sleep or you're gaining weight. These are all external struggles. But if you think you are a loser because this is happening to you or you think that you're, you're staying silent. So you think if you're the only one, it's happening to you, or you're too young for this to be happening to. That is all internally, you know, brought on and those flames, you know, are just ignited. And so can you struggle without suffering is the question. It's beautiful. How can we support other women when they're struggling? And the example I'll use is a good friend of

mine is going through a divorce. And so I've just been checking in with her, seeing how she's doing. And so what I hear in the response I get back is a lot of pain, a lot of pain. And then she follows it up with, but I'm okay. I'm okay. And so one day I said to her, you don't have to be okay. That's not, I'm not looking for you to be okay. How can I help you? And that moment really opened her up to be able to just tell me what was truly going on.

Is that the best way we can care for other women is to really give them permission when they put up a hard candy shell to say, you don't need to be okay around me? I love that. That just gave me chills. I mean, it's like, I just imagine when you said that being on the receiving end of that. It's okay to not be okay. And I think that's, I do think that that's a wonderful message to send to women. And it's okay to fall apart and it's okay to break down.

It's okay to cry. And, you know, everything is digital today. Obviously, our phones, email. So, you know, never underestimate a handwritten card that. that says, you know, you're a fighter. I believe in you. It's okay to fall apart. It's okay to cry.

It's okay for this to not feel okay. Because that's something too that your friend or whoever you're supporting can go back to. You know, it's not just a verbal conversation because I think there's a lot of times when I was a teenager and really, really struggling with self-esteem and not feeling good enough. I would keep, you know, letters that people wrote me that said nice things. to me and it was on my bulletin board and it was I didn't believe it on the inside but I did feel like they believed it and so I you know I I pinned that shit up like this is kind of I keep that's such a great idea more than just the the mother's day card you get you you do it

anybody write to something nice oh yeah yeah it's and also I mean this is another thing just about our society is like the cards are terrible you know they're they all say it's going to be okay. Don't they? I mean, just the general sentiment, like, where are the cards that say cancer sucks or this is going to be a long, ugly ass rude for you? You know, so it's, I think optimism is not always what people need to, you know, feel and hear. And yet, it, hope is what carries you through the tough moments. Yeah. So what's another message on the hope front that somebody said to me, one time I was my books like a mother got rejected for by 23 publishers for you know four years and and I just I never thought it was going to you know be real and you know come to life and I was really

defeated by it and another friend sent me a letter and she just listed like four or five harder things that I had done wow and I was like wow you're right like I have done hard things and so that can be another you know message of support is I think what whenever we're struggling or suffering with anything, we just get so myopically focused on that one issue and it becomes our whole identity. You know, menopause becomes your whole identity as opposed to, I've really been through some stuff before and I've overcome it and I will overcome this is a nice message. I love that.

How do we deal with those of us that are people pleasers? You have some stuff in your book about people pleasing. I feel like every woman I've ever met has had some form of people pleaser slant to her, some more than others. How do we identify when we're trying to do something to please people? And how do we unhook ourselves from that? Or do we want to unhook ourselves? Yes, we do.

Yeah, I think you can tell your people pleaser when you respond to situations twice, once inside and once outside. You know, so if somebody says, Hey, do you want to, you know, bake cookies for this Friday night, you know, community event? And if inside you go, hell no, you know, like you're just like, oh gosh, not another thing. It's like one thing to your soul, you know, on the inside. And then immediately your mouth goes, I would love to. You know, that's where you're living.

I feel like you've been. Have you been in my head? I feel like that exactly. And I watch myself. I'm like, you're saying this and you don't want to be doing it. I know. And, you know, I think a lot of times the person has not even. finish their request. And we are like, yes, yes. Like, we don't even know what we're signing up for.

So I think that's a, like, that's a red flag. And then again, just like you start to listen to the mean voice in your head, what am I saying to myself? Start to listen if you are, you know, kind of taking in requests on two different levels or responding to them. And the way that you can overcome it is to protect some of your time for yourself. So obviously our, our last, lives revolve around our calendars. And if something's not on your calendar, it's not real, you know. And unfortunately, we give away, you know, 95% of the real estate on our calendars. And it's going to work and to friends and to support in the community and their children and dentist appoint, you know, all the stuff of life. And we're kind of last. And then we say,

oh, well, if I find time to work out, you know, in this jigsaw puzzle of a calendar. But what I always suggest is fast forward on your calendar like three weeks from today because there's a lot more real estate in the future. It's not completely jam packed. And pick two or three like reoccurring meetings in quotes, you know, each week for something that's just for you. So it might be every Monday morning you're going to go to a yoga class or, you know, every Thursday for 30 minutes, you're going to, you know, sit in a bathtub and read a book by yourself. And the beauty of of reoccurring meetings is that you only have to get the courage up to do it once. Because you're saying, no, I'm saying every Monday morning I'm going to do yoga instead of every week.

Should I do yoga this week? Should I not? Should I give the time to my partner to somebody else? You know, and that's putting ourselves last. And so your me time or your, you know, workout time is already there. And what I have found, this is a religious practice of mind practice. is that all the other stuff still fits. Yeah.

And so then when I schedule the dentist appointments, I just don't do it at 8 a.m. on Monday because I'm going to yoga. Yeah. And so it reduces the cognitive load of, you know, always having yourself, you know, be last and have to get the courage and the courage up to put yourself on your

calendar. And what I want women to know and believe is that if you are giving all of your time away to other people on a fundamental level, you believe that other people deserve your time more than you do. Wow. And it means that you don't necessarily have a hard time saying no to other people. You have a hard time saying yes to yourself. And putting yourself on your calendar, it's just a quick little, it takes 10 minutes.

You could do it, you know. So I. Yeah. started doing that with workouts and time with friends. Like I've been doing that. It's the downtime. So I've actually scheduled downtime on my calendar. And then when something comes up, I'm like, oh, well, it is downtime. Like I guess I could do that. And so that has been the hardest for me to protect is, is that time where I'm not doing anything, but I might be sitting on the couch watching a Netflix series for the next five hours. That might be just what I need to be able to get through the rest of the week.

And when I take it to that level and go, but that's what I need to do the things I need to do next week. It helps me say no a little bit more. But I have to say the downtime's been hard to protect. Yeah, but you do need that. I mean, we're not machines. We can't go all the time due for everyone else. Like we have to recuperate. And your five hours of Netflix just described my Sunday.

And I was exhausted and I had been traveling and I had been in a soccer tournament. And I happened to have the house to myself, you know, at the last minute. And a girlfriend called and she said, do want to go down to the river? And I said, I do. But what I really want to do is sit on this couch and watch Netflix for five hours, which is exactly what I did. And I feel like now going into my week, I have, you know, more energy. But we have to believe that we're worthy of rest because that you don't.

We think that we have to hustle all the time in order, you know, to be worthy of even this life, you know, that we always, and that's our culture. It's like move, move, move, go, go. But there's a, I think you're just going to hit a wall. I mean, at some point, it's. It's so many women hit a wall. There was a quote that you said that I really resonated with was you set superhero expectations in Immortals world. who yes there is i always put really superhero uh tasks in front of me and i chase them and i chase them sometimes i get them and then when i get them i do the second thing you said which is

you're proud of your accomplishments for six minutes and then i said another one and i keep how do you break that so many women do that well you have to reframe your expectations so This was another thing I learned from my therapist. So I was just like you. It was like, okay, it doesn't matter what it was. It was in college, I want to get straight A's. If I'm a mother, I want to have the healthy meal on the table and I want to be a good employee and daughter boss, you know, it was just. And when anything fell short, I would yell at myself even more.

So it's this vicious cycle. If you set these expectations that you cannot achieve, you don't achieve them. And then you yell at yourself and then you set the expectations even higher. But she had me write down again, just kind of like the exercise I mentioned earlier, of write down the last terrible thing you said about yourself, I really do mean write it down because when you see it in your own handwriting, that exercise and the one I'm about to explain, it's undeniable. So she had me write down in this case,

what were my expectations for myself as a mother? And she was like, be honest. And what I wrote down was, I expect to be seen as a good mother every hour of every day in everyone's eyes. That's because if I'm really being honest, I wanted everyone to think of me, you know, that way. And then she's like, hmm, how's that feel? You know? And seeing it in my own hands, it was a, it was very weighty.

I mean, in my own handwriting. It was like, well, that is what I expect of myself. And then you can see that you're setting yourself up for failure. So she had me go away and rework it and I came back. And, you know, I reframed it to say. You know, when it comes to motherhood, I expect it to be a shit show. I expect to lose my patience. I expect to not always have the answer.

And I expect to always ask for help. And so I made it more about the journey than, you know, this external. I mean, it was so gross. The fact that what I want, my expectation was to be seen as something, you know, which has nothing to do with how I feel and how dead tired, you know, I was. And so I, again, I wrote it down in my journal and every once in a while I'll bring it back out. Like I'm again, I said, I have teenagers right now. That is still true.

I expect it to be hard. I expect to ask for help. I expect to not know what I'm doing. So you really have to do that, you know, on a macro level. Yep. To reframe like, what is success, you know? And for me now, success is asking questions and admitting when I'm struggling instead of success is other people's opinions of, you know, how I'm doing.

Success also. Do you feel like success is always a future thing? It's, you know, a lot of what I've been working on in my own life because now I don't have school schedules that we're following. We don't even have a dinner schedule we're following. And so it's really brought me into the present moment. And I realize how much of my life I've spent future tripping. And when I hear you talk about success, my brain goes to, I feel like success, just the word success is got us all mixed up because it's something we're trying to go chase and then we get it.

And then we're on to the next thing. There's no, it's like it's an illusion. I would almost like to just take that word out of the English or out of every language. Yeah. And you know what we do is we build mood boards or vision boards, vision boards. Yes. And somebody said this the other day and I was like, my mind was completely blown. They're like, so what do we put on our vision boards?

We put cars, you know, diamond rings, happiness, bliss. And they said there's two problems with vision boards. One is it's all future focused. It's all in the future. It's never about like what you have right now. And therefore, the second problem is every, it represents everything you do not have in your life. And isn't that horrible? Horrible.

We're supposed to be inspired by this vision board of where we want to be, but it's actually communicating to us that we have achieved none of these things yet. And so it was like the, it's almost like the reverb coming off of the vision board is actually making us feel bad about ourselves instead of being something that, you know, we need to go after. And it's like we should build boards that say, how I want to feel inside at the end of the day. Yeah.

As somebody who's a recovering vision board addict, I really resonate with that because you're right. And you look at it. You're supposed to look at it every day. And so every day you're reminded of what you are or not. Right. I'll tell you one way that I've been redefining since the pandemic. And I'm curious if you're seeing this in people in general is the pandemic really gave me the

gift of realizing the most of. important thing in my life is human connection. I just want to connect with people. I want to understand what makes people tick. I want to have strong relationships with people I care about. Like, that has become a top priority for me. Do you feel like looking at an accomplishment like that is more helpful than I want to drive a fancy car or own a big house? Yeah, 100% because it goes back to internal versus external. Like you've said, human connection makes me feel alive.

It makes me feel happy. It makes me feel fulfilled. You know, so that's about you and only you and it's about your feelings. Versus I have to achieve a certain level at work. I have to buy a certain car. I have to have, like all of those are external. And back to the quote you mentioned,

you know, from my book, even when you get those, you're going to be excited for six. days. And then it's like, well, what's the next car that, you know, I want or need? And so, yeah, I think there's been a great, you know, re-evaluation during the pandemic of what matters. And, you know, we were all locked in our homes, which also showed that we didn't need to be doing as much. Mm. Mm. We're doing before because, you know, we just jam-packed everything. And a lot of families are now saying, okay, what's the one activity you want to do, you know, as, you know, as, you know,

soccer player or instead of 12 that we were doing before. But I think all success should be defined internally. So I am the CEO of a consulting company. I started called the mom complex. And when I first became an entrepreneur, the narrative in the United States around being an entrepreneur is you have to grow, grow, grow, grow, grow, and then you're going to sell. So you're basically going to kill yourself for like 15 years.

You're going to take on all these investors. And then you're going to make a ton of money, you know, in 15 years. And I said, my definition of success is being content in the present moment, not 15 years from now. And so I'm going to build a company that I want to work for every single day that lights my soul on fire. And that's the payoff. And I'm not trying to sell it. I'm not in the construction business. I'm not trying to build something to sell it. I'm trying to build a career that changes the world. It gives me a great life, you know, along the way, not financially, but mentally in my sanity.

And I just never heard other entrepreneurs, you know, saying that. People thought I was crazy that I was like, my payoff is now. Because what happens if I get a cancer diagnosis, 12 years from the 15-year run? And then it was for nothing? Yeah. Like, no. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. All you've got to do is sit at the bedside of anybody dying and realize how erroneous that statement is. Do you think at the core? of many women is the belief I'm not enough. And so we people please, we do things because we're trying to get that core wound under control. And if it is the core issue of so many women, how do we just fix I am not enough? Well, I talk about it and say like a mother that 90% of the women that I have

studied in 17 countries around the world have this dragon of self-doubt or live with self-doubt. And what's crazy is that 75% of the time a woman's self-doubt is born during or before adolescence. And so when you were a teenager or younger, it's very likely that something happened to you that took your self-esteem down. You know, somebody calls you fat. Somebody said you weren't smart. You were the youngest kid in your kindergarten class, you know. And then, of course, there's traumas with capital T's of abuse and neglect and rape and sexual assault that destroy people's self-esteem. And so I think there's, you know, there's traumas with

capital T's. There's traumas with small T's, but they're all valid. But part of the work is figuring out when and where your dragon of self-doubt was born. And then that's a start. We don't want to live in the past, you know, forever. But I think it's important. Was it from your parents? Was it from a boyfriend? Was it from a friend? And so that's the first step. And then the, the second step is admitting that you have this living inside you so you're hearing you know that negative self-talk and then it's the things that we're talking about this daily practice of taking time to yourself this daily practice of connecting of you know eliminating um the negative you know self-talk or teaching it manners and it it is a practice it's like an exercise routine or it's like

fasting i mean it's it's things that like you have to do it all the time like it's not I lived with this dragon of self-doubt for 20 years from 15 to 35, and it doesn't just go away, you know, overnight, but I often talk about, you know, dragons of self-doubt thrive in silence and darkness and avoidance. And so the first step is just admitting that you have one. Amazing. And many people don't understand that event or that person that implanted that self-doubt. One of the people I brought on the podcast was Bruce Lipton, and he was talking about how from zero to seven is when our subconscious patterning is getting developed. And after I chatted with him, I really started to go back and ask myself, what happened to me between

zero and seven that I may still be carrying forward today? And that's hard to figure out. is what if for our listeners, if they're hearing that and they're going back to their childhood trying to figure out where I'm not enough got implanted, are there strategies for us to identify who may have put it there or the situation that occurred around that? Yeah, I think if you want to go down a, you know, a DIY path, I think it's making a list of the five, you know, childhood or teenage, you know, experiences that hurt you, that that stuck you, you know, that it's almost like a line of the sand the day before you felt better about yourself, but it's like we all remember like the slights and the cuts and we were probably

slighted a lot, but there's probably five that you could identify with and, you know, or identify and then, you know, really think those through. What came first and did it, what happens often is that the first cut that happens is quite deep. And then the others just pile on, you know, then they become proof. So somebody hurts you. You feel like you're not good enough. And then other people hurt you. And then you're like, see, I told you, I wasn't good enough. Because if I was good enough, this guy wouldn't have broken up with me or this wouldn't have, I wouldn't have gotten a divorce, you know. So then we play into it of it becomes evidence that we're not good enough. But I will say too that I just, I cannot recommend therapy enough. And a lot of my identification

of, you know, where my dragon of doubt came from and how it impacted my life was from crying my eyes out on a therapist's couch who was asking me questions that I never would have asked myself and never would have, you know, thought of in a particular way. And my husband was always like, why are you paying someone to make you cry? Because it feels so good. I'm saving my soul, dude. And so, you know, and there's a lot of online resources. for therapy, it can be more accessible than I think, you know, years, you know, in the past. But, you know, never underestimate a trained professional. And, you know, in the beginning, I probably unearthed 70% of my personal challenges with myself in three or four sessions. So it wasn't

$10,000. You know, it was. And people used to say, oh, isn't that fancy? Like, you know, you go to therapy. And I was like, I'm going because I'm broken. I don't know why you think it's fancy. And second of all, like, I would rather spend $100, you know, to go and understand my life experience through a therapist's size than to buy a sweater from anthropology. Yes. Yes. I don't need another sweater. I need to figure myself out.

And I think, I wish it was taught in schools. You know, you think about, you know, again, if drag is a self-doubt are born during adolescence and children are studying math and science and the weather and English, then why are we at studying ourselves and what makes us content and what depletes us and what drains us and those coping skills. So now I know myself so well because of so much therapy that it's so much easier for me to say no because I have identified what drains me and what really, you know, lights my soul up.

I love that. One of my deep questions I've been asking myself over the last. last two years is what direction is humanity heading after the pandemic. And, you know, when we first went into the pandemic, I went back and really looked at the last pandemic, which was the 1918 Spanish flu. And if you look at what came out of that, and specifically for women, the roaring 20s came out of that. And the roaring 20s were about community and celebration. And women, my listeners have heard me say this a lot. It's something that I'm very passionate about is that women became less ladylike. We cut our hair short, the flapper, and the skirt went shorter. And there was this

new emergence specifically of women. And I've been thinking a lot about the new emergence of women as we go forward into the next couple of decades. I feel like we have a real opportunity to take our power back. And the conversations I hope like this are waking women up. But if you had a crystal ball and you wanted to predict what a healthy step forward for women would look like, could you paint that picture for us? What would it look like moving forward if we were to support each other, talk differently to ourselves? How does that look in action? Well, first of all, you're giving me hope.

I love that what happened in the world 20s because I have not had a lot of hope recently happening to women and it can be, you know, just depressing. So thank you for that historical lesson. It lifts me up. And I do think that's important to know. I think that is like validating. I'm like, okay, we can do this. So I think the greatest ship that it could occur is that as a country,

we see power only as an external force. To dominate other people, we have to, you know, beat up other people. We have to fight other people, the corporate work. You know, it's all a fight for external power. And I think if anyone is going to lead the charge and the seismic shift that has to happen to realize that the only true power is internal power and how we feel about ourselves and how we show up in the world and how we architect our lives for our contentment and happiness instead of proving ourselves, you know, to other people, I think it's women. I think we're the gender to say power comes from the inside. And I think it's believing that power is only external is the cause for all the political strife, the race, you know, relations. Like it's all this domination of external power.

And I think that women should be the ones to say, you know what? Like how do we harness our internal power and a sense of. community instead of competition, because this is a mess. Yes. Oh, my gosh. Thank you for saying that. And I would say that conversations like this, and I hope those of you that are listening really feel that is at the root of us standing in our own power, we're going to need to deal

with, I am not enough. Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, you cannot stand up for yourself if you don't believe in yourself. Yes. And I think the world has benefited from women not believing in themselves or people that are not women have benefited. I hear you. You know, you hear all of this like, well, we have to go fight for ourselves. We have to stand up for ourselves. We have to take more time for ourselves. And I'm like, what are you talking about? Like, no one stands up for themselves unless they believe in themselves. So we have missed the first step. Like we have to teach women to believe in themselves.

And then and only then will you say, this is not okay. This has to be fixed. And we've been positioned as this submissive, you know, group of individuals, like since the beginning of time. And but again, I don't think the solution is external power and taking down men. Like, I don't think that. No. You know, I've done some historical studying recently about the way,

that societies have evolved. And if you go back to like before BC, you know, BC years, we had a matriarchal society. And when I've studied what that is, what a matriarchal society was is that women really believed in their intuition. Women gathered together in groups and supported each other to your point where they collaborated with each other. And that women were held in high regard within the community. And then after, you know, after that came a patriarchal society. which is what we've been living in, which shunned everything that the matriarchal society held as high, you know, high assets. And now, to your point, what I really am hoping for all humans is that we blend together the patriarch and the matriarch and that we come together as humans. And to your point,

also, I really believe the core wound for women is this, I'm not enough. We have to believe in ourselves for us to be able to stand on our own ground. So, Catherine, this was, yeah, I mean, I said I wanted to have a conversation like we were at a bar having wine and you just, you just accomplished that. So thank you so much for that. I really appreciate it. And my last question to you, I ask all of my guests, which is, do you have a daily gratitude practice? And if so, what is it? And what's one thing in this day and age in 20, 2022 that you're grateful for. I don't know if it's a daily gratitude practice, but I will point out this in the background

right here. I see it. I love it. That is a heart that I made out of my maternal grandmother's jewelry. And all it is is a bulletin board that I bought, you know, from a DIY store and I painted at the wall color. And then I just stuck like staples, like around the jewelry and made it into this heart. But my grandmother and I were very, very close.

And I always got such strength from her. And she was, you know, a widow and a single mother at 21 years old and, you know, just never complained and was such a pillar of strength in my life. And I still feel her presence all the time. And so this happens to be my laundry room, too, which is, you know. Best place to podcast. To have a special place, you know, a fancy place to put. But, you know, I have a candle lit underneath of it.

And so that's my gratitude practice of just coming down and I'm doing a laundry and feeling her presence and being grateful that I had her in my life for so long. And I'll never forget the lessons that she taught me. And it kind of grounds me in, you know, the crazy days and times that we're living in. Again, I feel like I've known you before this moment. I have a very similar grandmother story. And my grandmother, I always say, spoke affirmations into me. And she didn't really even know what she was doing, but she would hold my hand. And I grew up in a home where my sister was very much the dominating personality. And there was a lot of arguing that was going on. And she would hold my hand and say, Mindy, you are kind. People like you.

You are smart. And she didn't even realize what she was doing. But those. words that she put into my head into my brain at five, eight, nine, they're still there. It's crazy. So if you're a grandmother listening to this, that's the power that you have to influence your children. It is really a direct route into the subconscious. Unbelievable. Thank you so much for joining me in today's episode.

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