00:39

Welcome to this week's episode.

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00:41

This is the last episode I will be delivering from my home of the last 13 years. As those of you that are watching this on video, you can see I have a very empty bookshelf behind me. We are literally halfway moved out.

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00:58

Moving day is tomorrow. I want to fill you in more on that in the coming weeks, just in all that's been kind of transpiring behind the scenes. But for today, I'm excited to talk with you and share with you some of my thoughts and lessons learned over the last 13 years of my life.

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01:18

I've been in this home for 13 years. And during this time, this has been the era of my life coaching journey, of becoming a coach, of expanding my skills, not only business-wise, but the skills and abilities to support other people in transformation.

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01:37

And of course, as we know, when we are leaders, when we are the people who are making a difference in the world, helping others, cultivating relationships, creating growth and expansion, we lead first, right?

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01:53

Every one of you are here because you're here, because you're leaning into understanding growth. I know that you have had some pretty unique experiences in your life. And what a gift to be here and to be willing, each of you, to be willing to show up for ourselves, learn the lessons we need, lean into the growth so that we can be of service to others.

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02:18

What a gift. And I'm just honored to be here with you as always. Today's episode, I am going to, I'm feeling a little sentimental and I'm going to share some things that have been really near and dear to my heart.

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02:30

And in terms of you and the message I want to offer you, I want to share with you five things that have really stood out to me as I've been thinking about this transition happening in my life. So before we dive into that, I want to make sure that you all know, especially those of you that are coaches, consultants, those of you that are leading others through change, I want you to know that our community membership,

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02:57

The Masterful Coach Collective, is open for enrollment. And in fact, if you're listening to this podcast, when it is first airing and live, we have a huge bonus right now where you can access one of my most popular signature programs, Create Your Killer Program is all a part of the deal when you join this community.

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03:18

So the Masterful Coach Collective Community is a community specifically designed to support you as a coach, as a healer, as a consultant, leading others through change. What this means is that every single month you will be supported in continued education with your coaching skills, understanding how to truly support others in change from a mental, emotional, nervous system, and action-focused strategy approach.

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03:47

Every single month, you will have live coaching with me. You will have live business training. You will have live tapping with Melanie Faye. And you will also have quarterly planning sessions. Oh, and by the way, we also, before I forget, we also have accountability calls weekly.

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04:02

So truly, this community is fantastic. It is a place to support you as you are cultivating your growth as a coach, as a business owner, and as you are leading change. So make sure to check out the link in the show notes or you can go to mollyclare.com, the masterful coach collective community.

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04:21

We have great stuff going on in there. So hope to see many of you joining us very soon. So as we dive into this episode, I moved into this house 13 years ago. And I still remember. So when I moved into this house, I had my youngest was two.

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04:40

That would have made my oldest 10. And then I had an eight-year-old. And I remember when we first pulled up to the house, I could see the elementary school a block in front of the house. We had just passed a park a few houses down.

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04:54

And I said out loud, I hope this house is amazing because this is exactly where I want to live. I always have loved the idea of a neighborhood where there are families out, where there's activity going on, where I can walk my kids to and from school.

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05:10

That was always something that was so important to me. And sure enough, the house was amazing. It was absolutely perfect. And it's been an incredible 13 years here. So fast forward, when I think about that moment in time, and I think about at the time, the way I thought about the world and the way I thought about life, the way I thought about myself, including what I believed was true about me, what I believed was possible for me, what I believed was impossible for me. When I think about the way I related to my own emotions and the ways that I would minimize and dismiss them, and when I think about the ways that I was constantly in survival mode and didn't even know, I am floored and amazed at what has transpired over the last 13 years.

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06:03

And as you're listening, I don't know where you are in your life exactly. I don't know where you are in your journey of transformation. And let's face it, it's always ongoing. But I want you to take a moment to think about a time before now where you identified very differently in terms of who you are, who you were, and what was possible for you and what you believed.

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06:32

Because I know if you're here, you've gone through some type of growth and change. And I just want you to take a minute to think about the difference between then and now and what's different and what you've learned.

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06:50

And part of the reason that I'm having you pause and think about this is that as we, all of us, as we move forward toward more growth, toward more expansion, meeting our goals, it's inevitable that we are going to have a part of us that believes that what we think, feel, see, and experience now is just absolute and permanent.

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07:11

And when we can really, truly see the growth and change and expansion that's already happened, it's a reminder to us that it's possible again. That once upon a time, everything seemed absolute and lo and behold, it wasn't.

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07:28

And now when things seem absolute, they're not. So take that in as we're talking about this today. So when I look back then over the last 13 years, my boys are both now grown and out of the house. My daughter's about to get her license.

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07:45

I have gone through a divorce. And many of you know, I went through a remarriage where I had a very large blended family. And it was a very difficult and growth-promoting experience, I will say, and very, very difficult.

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08:06

And at times seemed unfathomable to me that I was going through divorce again. So during this time, I found life coaching. I started coaching individuals. I wrote my book. I've learned an unbelievable amount about the human brain, about our emotions, about how we engage in relationships and why we engage in the way we do in relationships.

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08:30

I've understood an unbelievable amount about human behaviors and what it is that we need to give ourselves in order to truly become more of who we're meant to be. So all that being said, let's talk about five things.

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08:54

Okay. So during this time, as I found coaching, built my business, expanded my business, had major shifts in my life, raised my kids as a single mom for much of it, and now coming full circle to downsizing, moving on to this next phase of life.

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09:16

One of the key things that has stood out to me is identity shifts. Take a minute to think about what do you identify as? And an easy way to think about this is what are the things that you believe are true about yourself?

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09:34

When someone asks you about you, what do you say? Do you say, oh, I'm a creative person? I'm ambitious. I'm disciplined or I'm not. I'm very active. Do you think of yourself as lazy? Do you put yourself in a box in terms of what you're capable of?

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09:52

Think for a minute, if you were to tell someone what's true about you, what would those words be? And this is a really easy way to see, how do I identify? What is the identity I claim for me? And what I want to say about identity and how you identify now or the identity that you take on right now is identities are formed over our lifetime very much without our conscious input until we learn otherwise.

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10:28

Identities are formed. Then, with an awakening, with an awareness of our thoughts, with an awareness that we create and cultivate our life, we can choose the identity we want to have. Who do I want to be?

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10:46

What traits do I want to identify with? And when we can choose and cultivate that identity, wow, we have so much more power. We can be a better partner, a better spouse. We can be a stronger business owner, someone who makes significant money and builds wealth to create a lifestyle that allows us presence and time with those we love.

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11:16

We can cultivate an identity that is full of habits that support health and wellness and good. And I'm just touching on this, but I want you to think about how do you identify now? It's formed. And what will you choose for identity?

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11:36

And how will you continue to cultivate it? I want to move to this next point now. Let's talk about frameworks. So when I'm working with my coaches and I'm training my master coaches, especially in how they work with their clients in family dynamics, in relationship dynamics.

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12:00

One of the things that we focus quite a bit on is understanding how our clients and each of us have certain frameworks in which we view the world. So think about this for a minute. Right now, you, as you're listening, you have a certain framework around family, for example.

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12:23

You have certain beliefs about what family is, what family isn't, what family should be, what roles fit in and how they fit in. There are all kinds of rules and regulations and structure and framework.

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12:38

And when I say framework, I mean framework in your mind as to how things fit together. So this is just one example, right? So when I'm talking about frameworks, we have frameworks about all kinds of different things.

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12:49

I'm just using this one example of the framework of family, for example. And the reason I bring this up is because oftentimes, for example, when I'm working with a client who is struggling with their relationship and with their family dynamics, okay, and we're working together, we can see that the framework or belief they have around how things should be can oftentimes frustrate them.

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13:18

It can limit what's possible. Because if we think about this, especially in terms of a family dynamic, family relationship, right? If I have a certain belief or framework about how things should be and how things should fit together and what roles people play, and then in a family system, we have individuals, inevitably, right?

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13:36

Individuals. Each individual is going to have their own idea and their own way of how they want to fit into things. And so if I'm thinking this from a perspective of me, for example, having frustration in a relationship dynamic, in a family framework, and I'm very set on the way I believe things should fit together, and then you have three X factors, right, in this framework, in this family dynamic, who are not falling into the framework in the way that I believe they should, I am going to be frustrated. And so one of the key things that my master coaches do as they work with people on these type of relationship things are, what is the framework here?

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14:19

And is this framework helping or hindering what's possible? So with all that being said, as I think about the drastic changes that I have experienced in, you know, over this last little over decade, there have been frameworks in my life that have shifted.

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14:43

And the sooner each of us can realize that we do have frameworks or these structured beliefs around things and be willing to look at the frameworks and decide if these frameworks are useful or not, the better we will be able to adapt, the greater cognitive flexibility we will have, and in terms of relationship, the greater capacity we will have to be able to experience love and deeper connection and intimacy in all of our relationships.

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15:26

And so when it comes to frameworks, think about what is a specific area of your life where you can really look at what is my framework within this? What am I believing should be happening? And how is that serving me or not?

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15:42

And I think the things I want you to consider when you think about a particular framework is a framework can direct our actions. It kind of directs how we believe things are supposed to go and therefore how we should behave in a situation.

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15:55

Our frameworks can limit us at times, but not always. Frameworks are not bad. I want to make that clear. Frameworks can limit us and frameworks can also help us expand, especially when we are open to adjusting the way a certain framework in our mind applies to a certain area of our life.

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16:18

So frameworks, right? We want to shift identities. We want to be aware of frameworks. Next thing I want to talk about, regulation. You've heard me talk a lot about this. You've heard Leah Davidson on the podcast.

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16:30

You've heard Melanie Fay on the podcast. Many of my other guests were talking about nervous system. And this is why this is a huge component of what I work with my master coaches on, understanding the nervous system.

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16:41

The fact of the matter is that everyone walking around today in this world will have emotional activation at some point in time today. And most people do not understand how automatic most of our emotional responses are.

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16:59

Most people walking around do not have a good gauge on understanding when they are going into a stress state and how that stress state impacts everything. So Leah Davidson, incredible nervous system expert, she and I are doing each other's programs this year.

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17:16

And yesterday I was in her nervous system program and we were talking about just how much access to that CEO brain that we lose. So kind of getting you up to speed here, if this is new for you, when we are in a state of stress, we are potentially even in a trauma response, okay?

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17:39

When we have that shift in our nervous system, in our body, in our emotions, we lose access to our executive functioning skills, the part of our brain that is able to help us emotionally regulate, to plan, to strategize, to think logically.

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17:56

And so, and it's, and we were talking yesterday about just how many things can impact our ability to emotionally regulate or not emotionally regulate. And so when I think about, especially, you know, I shared with you at the beginning of this episode, coming to this house, I have little kids, right?

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18:16

You want to talk about a time when we're primed for emotional activation and stress. And as I look at the tremendous growth and transformation that I thankfully and gratefully have experienced over this last, you know, 13 years of my life, I see that the understanding of understanding more about your nervous system, more about what triggers look like, what triggers feel like, and building the skills and capacity to be able to create safety in your body regularly is what is going to allow you to meet your goals.

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18:56

It's what is going to allow you to engage in your relationships in the way you want. So this is the third big thing that I want you to think about and that really is a part of any kind of deep transformation.

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19:10

How can we take ownership of our emotional regulation? Not by trying to force ourselves to be less reactive, but by actually connecting with self, by actually understanding and befriending our nervous system, as Leah puts it.

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19:26

Which lends itself leads right into my next topic, emotional needs. As I think about everything that has transpired as I have found coaching and built this business and gone through major relationship and family changes and financial changes and building my business, one of the greatest things that has come of this and that is the primary thing that I teach each of you and speak about and the thing I will say that surprised me more than anything is just how important our emotional needs are.

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20:05

I want you to think about what it's like for you on a daily basis when you have emotions come up, especially if you have emotions come up that you may be judging as immature or silly or something to be pushed aside.

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20:19

We have such an emphasis on not being emotional. And we talk so much about being logical, being practical. And we can often talk about emotions as if they are something to be minimized, to really be controlled, to be minimized, to be controlled, and to really shut out and to like sort of mature out of being emotionally.

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20:43

When the reality is this, you have emotions and your emotions matter and you have emotional needs. And the biggest emotional problem that most people have is that early on, we learned by experience, by those around us, and by the way things can sort of turn around in our brain on ourselves when we feel emotions is we learned that our emotions were not safe to feel, that our emotions were wrong, that we should stop our emotions, that we should stop crying, and that we should be less emotional. And the reason this is a problem is that when we, all of you, when you have emotional needs and you have emotions come up and you begin to create a pattern in your mind that says, my feelings don't matter.

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21:35

I shouldn't feel this way. I should shut this down. I should move past this. What it actually does is it creates more of that emotional activation that's not helpful that we were just talking about with the nervous system.

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21:47

On top of that, the more we are shutting down and dismissing our emotions, the less capable we are of true human connection, of listening to those we love when they're sharing something that's hard to hear.

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22:03

We have less of a capacity to be with our children, our family and friends when they're experiencing something difficult. And, you know, this emotional piece, I probably talk about it more than anything else because I'm telling you, it has been the biggest game-changer for me.

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22:23

When I look at the shifts that I've made, my identity, my frameworks, understanding regulation, the decisions I've made to step into being a breadwinner, a business owner, providing for my family, completely changing the trajectory of my life and raising my kids and things I'm really proud of.

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22:40

This piece, the ways that I honor and relate to my emotional self is the biggest game changer. And it is the piece of my business and the work I do with my clients that is across the board the most transformational.

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22:56

And what it creates for my clients and my coaches is the opportunity to feel more self-connected, which means more at peace with self, more aligned with who you are, more aligned with your purpose, and feeling more of a sense of self-trust that you can actually create what you want.

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23:22

Not to mention the fact that when we connect with that emotional self and the experience of that, which is so nurturing to the emotions and nurturing to the soul, it allows a softening of who we are.

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23:41

And the best part about this, I can say for me, hands down, is the way that I am able to be a mom to my kids in a way that I just didn't even know or understand before. I feel like I was a pretty good mom.

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24:00

I always did my best. But this ability to have so much emotional capacity that I can be so present with my kids when I just wouldn't have been able to before is such a gift. Such a gift. So before we move on to our last point and wrap up this episode, what is your relationship with your emotions?

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24:27

How do you respond to yourself when big feelings come up? Do you allow space and care for your emotions? And can you do a little more of that? I promise it's going to be the game-changer. The last thing I want to share with you in reflecting over just, I mean, really such a chunk of life here.

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24:53

My daughter this morning was just kind of getting emotional. She's like, I've grown up in this house. You know, she was two when we moved here. And we've lived a lot of life in this house, a lot of holidays.

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25:03

We had over Christmas, we had, I think I had 10 house guests. We had my cousin and her girls were here and my sister and my nephews and my kids. And we have, we've had a lot of life in this house. And it's just, I think it's always really powerful when we have these big changes to really think back and see, what have I learned?

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25:25

What has happened for me? So back on track here, as I think about the last thing I wanted to offer up to you to think about today in terms of the different aspects of moving through great transformations and intentionally creating great transformations.

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25:45

It's remembering that the moments and the decisions you make matter. They shape us. It was really interesting about a month ago as I was kind of moving through the house and starting to pack up. I noticed many of the key memories that I had in this house actually had a bit of a negative flavor to them, but they didn't feel negative to me.

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26:12

There were kind of these moments in time where something happened and it was a moment that was a defining moment to me that said, this needs to change. It was moments of clarity to see that what was happening in my life or in my relationships was absolutely a no-go, not anymore.

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26:40

And what I want to offer you is that when we have, when you have these moments of clarity, of realization that something needs to change, how can you support yourself in making a powerful decision that will lead you toward the most authentic life?

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27:09

The moments and the decisions we make in those moments, they shape us. They shape our future. And I am so grateful for all the little moments in my life that have allowed me the clarity to be right where I am here with you today.

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27:27

All right. Thank you for indulging me. Thank you for being here with me as I have sort of reminisced over this time. It's really amazing to think back when I found coaching. I was in the room I'm in now.

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27:39

I'm in my office. And once upon a time, my dad was actually living with me and this was his room. And I would be in the room right next door and he would have my daughter and I would be on the floor with my laptop and I would be taking my coaching class.

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27:54

And then I would come into him and I would celebrate and tell him, oh my gosh, this is so amazing. This is what I meant to do. And I think about when I started taking client calls and I had a little white desk in my daughter's room.

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28:06

It was in the corner of her room. I got this desk and chair at a yard sale and I would sit there. I had a, I used a dial-in conference line and I had a little headset that I used. And I had all this artwork on the wall from my kids.

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28:20

And just really these fun, fun memories. And what a gift to see, you know, here I am sharing this with you in this office and being able to move on to this next phase of life and just really take all of the lessons, all of the growth, and just look forward to such an incredible future.

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28:44

So sending you all lots of love. Thank you for being here with me today. Think about your identity shifts. Think about those frameworks. Think about your own regulation. Where are you with that? What is your relationship with your emotional self?

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28:58

Really think about that. And how can you support yourself in making the important decisions in the moments along the way? All right. I'll talk with you next week.