70. Identify Resources - Counseling, Coaching, & Community

"I felt this requirement to be all things to all people. But I didn't understand what the foundation of that was. I didn't understand where that came from, or why I felt that way. Through counseling, I learned where it came from. I was able to pinpoint it because I was able to put my finger on it so I can address it right. I can decide how I want to show love and how love flows freely from me. Not in a way that is so taxing--so taxing that it's taking me so far under that I'm drowning. I don't want to drown because of my love.

 I want to love with joy, I want to love with freedom, I want to love from a place that's pure." ~ PBJ

Join Dr. Patrice Buckner Jackson as she talks about Counseling, Coaching, & Community.

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Transcript

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Hey, hey, hey friends and start to Patrice Buckner Jackson. But you can call me PBJ. Welcome to another episode of Heart Work with PBJ, where we are disrupting cycles of burnout and compassion fatigue, so that you can do what you were created to do. Without paying ultimate sacrifice. It's my friend. Listen, it is an honor that you continue to join us here. Do me a favor when you like, subscribe, leave a comment, download, whatever you can do wherever you're listening or watching this podcast, it helps us get this message out further faster. So why don't you do that for me now and then come on back so we can start this episode. All right, friends, so you know that we are in a series talking about recovery, and how it's time to recover, and how we recover. So last episode, Episode 69, we were talking about assessing the damage. And what has happened as a result of burnout, what has happened, as a result of compassion, fatigue, or, or being overwhelmed or overworking what's happened in your body, what's happened to your mind what's happened in your spirit, what's happened in your soul? What has happened in your relationships, before we heal anything, we have to identify and assess the damage. So if you haven't done that, I encourage you to go back to Episode 69. We did a visualization exercise, we walk through it together. So I encourage you to go do that. Okay. Today, I want to share with you the resources that transformed my life. And I know that we live in a day that people say this did this, this did that. This is not hype. This is the real for me, the things that God has brought into my life that really set me on a different course. And this is after 40 years of living, right. So I'm still unraveling, still working through some things still still unlearning and relearning. But I want to share with you resources. Because after you assess the damage, you need to identify resources that will help you. And again, this process of recovery, it applies to our work, it applies to our community. But today we're talking about you. Because all of your attention normally goes to everybody else. But here in the heart work community, we focus on you. Because if we can heal you, if you can recover, then you can do the things that have been assigned to your hands. So you probably heard me say this before. But there are three foundational resources that I recommend to everybody, because I am living in the outcomes and the blessings of these three resources. So today, I want to talk to you about counseling. I want to talk to you about coaching. And I want to talk to you about community, these three resources through God through the Holy Spirit, these three resources have come into my life, and have set me on a path of freedom. And I want that freedom for you. I want you to experience freedom, and your purpose, freedom in your work, freedom in your survey freedom in your living, I want you to be able to breathe, I want you to have joy in doing what you were called to do. So that's why I am suggesting these three resources for you. So first of all, I got to start with counseling. Because I believe that counseling is the foundation resource. And I'll be the first to acknowledge to you that I didn't always go to counseling. As a matter of fact, I've only been in counseling about a year and a half now. Now, keep in mind, I've been working in higher ed almost 25 years, and I have recommended and walk students to counseling all of those years. I would be the first one to recommend that a student go to counseling, but I never stopped to acknowledge that I needed it for myself. In my career, I had supported students. I had been there during a student death I had supported their families and their loved ones been through all kinds of crisis and situations. And because it wasn't directly my crisis, because it wasn't my thing. I didn't acknowledge this Secondary impact on me. But even if you don't believe you've been through any trauma or any crisis, I believe every person can benefit from counseling. Every person can benefit from counseling. And there's a difference between counseling and coaching. And there's a reason why I say counselling first. Because I don't believe we can be open to coaching or community until we understand more about ourselves. And we do the work of healing within ourselves so that our hearts can be open to receive the benefits of coaching and community. So we have to start with counseling. I want to tell you a couple of things that I gained from my counseling journey. I'm so glad I'm so glad. And honestly, I connected with counseling because I joined a community of women, powerful, female entrepreneurs who encouraged counseling, and it was during the pandemic, and everything was crazy. And I finally, finally finally stepped out for myself and connected to counseling. One of the things I learned in my counseling journey, is the reason why I struggle with people pleasing. And the reason why I struggle with overworking is because in many ways in my life, I learned that love is transactional. Let me tell you more. So, through working with my counselor, we pinpointed that there were many people in my life, who showed me love by giving. And this is no shade on my people. Because my folks love me, well, they love me the best they knew how. And it's because of them that I am who I am. So let's just let's just be honest, let's say what it is. So this is not a Slack against my people. But what I learned through let me give you a gift, let me do this for you. Let me do that for you is Love must be transactional, and through others in my life, it was the expectation that I gave to them. So in order to show love you do this for me, you do that for me or you give me this or I can call on you when I need. So I found myself overwhelmed, overburdened overworking because subconsciously, I believed that love means you have to give. And I would give it all because I love heart. And I want people to know that they are loved. And I want them to know that I love them. So I would give it all it would cost me everything. And through counseling, I learned that love is not transactional. Love is not what I can give you. And what I can't give you love is something that you can't earn. You can't do anything. I can't do anything to earn love. Either you love me or you don't. Right. So that was a major, major breakthrough and counseling from me, because it helped me reassess how I was loving the people in my life, I realized that I didn't have to be there. Every time everybody called, I realized that I didn't have to be the solution to everybody's problem, I realized that I did not have to bend over backwards to do things for people or to buy things for people or to get things for people that I didn't have the resources to do that. That didn't mean that I did not love them. I realized that my boundaries. My Self Love was more than acceptable. But it was required. In order for me to sustain the way that I love. I had to walk away from that transactional theory of love and I had to walk in to have more pure love and what it means to be loved, and what it means to show. So that's just a part. That's just a piece of my journey. But I didn't know that about myself. I wasn't aware. I wasn't aware. I just knew I felt this mean, I felt this pressure. I felt this requirement to be all things to all people. But I didn't understand what the foundation of that was. I didn't understand where that came from, or why I felt that way. And through counseling. I learned where that came from. And because I was able to pinpoint it because I was able to put my finger on it. Then I can address it right. I can deal with it. I can pay If I can decide how I want to show love, and how love flows freely from me, and not in a way that is so taxing that is taking me under, that I'm drowning, I don't want to drown because of my love. I want to love with joy, I want to love with freedom, I want to love from a place that's pure, from a place that's pure. So that's one thing from my counseling journey that I learned, and that has been so transformational for me, and there have been so many other things. But I want you to know that you have your own journey, and you have your own backpack, and you have experiences, and you have lessons that you may not be aware of. You may not understand why you do the things you do or why you feel the way you feel. But there's something in your backpack that triggers that that serves as a foundation for that. And when you can put your finger on that thing, you can determine how you want to take that into your future, if you want to take it at all. And counseling helps us do that. So I encourage everybody, every person that I know, to connect with a counselor, a licensed certified counselor, not your best friend, not your big sister, not your brother, all of that's beautiful and keep those relationships, but you need someone who is not emotionally attached to you, so that they can tell you the truth guide you through without their emotions being intertwined with yours. There's so much value and working through the heart work doing the heart work with someone whose heart is not enmeshed and intertwined with yours, your counselor cares about you. But they can, they can approach your journey from an unbiased place. Because they don't have that kind of relationship with you. Everybody needs somebody in their life, who can help them with their journey, but they're not emotionally attached to you. You need that kind of support on your journey. So counseling is the first resource. The next resource I want to encourage. And you all have heard me talk about having coaches. I believe in the power of coaching. I believe I'm a believer in the power of coaching. And what has happened in coaching is my coaches have taken my mental blocks my understanding my perspective, and they have pushed me to see beyond that perspective. They have challenged me to see things see options that I wouldn't see on my own. All of us have a mental box, we have a mindset that helps us receive and perceive the world. And it comes from our experiences. It comes from our backpacks, having someone to come into your life and not telling you what to do. Because a good coach is not going to tell you what to do. A good coach will guide you so that you can find your own solution. Having someone in your life that will press you that will challenge you that will question you that will help you break open that box and make it wider will give you a global view, a wild view of what's going on, as opposed to your experience is worth more money than I could ever spend. I see myself differently. I see my purpose differently. I see you all the people that I serve, I see you differently because of coaching. Because I had someone I had people in my life who challenged me to think beyond what I've been taught what I've experienced what I've seen, especially for minoritized communities, especially for underrepresented communities. If you have not seen it before, if you didn't grow up with it. If you don't have an example, you may not know it's even available to you, but to have someone in your life that will help you see beyond what you think is real and what you think is available to you is so valuable. And that's what coaching has done. That's what coaching has done. Coaching has pushed me beyond what I thought I was going to be. Coaching has pushed me beyond what I thought I could do. And I'm just getting started. I'm not done yet. I've got a long way to go. I had a mindset of I will I'm keep doing this work until retirement, then when I retire, maybe I'll write a book, maybe I'll do this, maybe I'll do that coaching has pushed me so far beyond what I thought I would accomplish in my life. And that is the value of having a coach and your life, not somebody to tell you what to do. But somebody to challenge what you think your limitations are, for somebody to challenge scarcity, and limiting beliefs in your life, so that you can think beyond what your life experience has taught you to be true. Oh, my goodness, I can't tell you. I can't tell you the value of coaching in my life, but I wouldn't have been ready for coaching if I didn't do counseling. So I'll tell you out this. When I first met my coach, I was a little offended by her, I will go and it wasn't anything that she did, necessarily, but I was offended by the challenge. I was offended by the push. And I learning counseling. That's because I always want everybody to be proud of me. And I want people to be happy with me. And it's not that she wasn't happy with me. But the challenge made me feel like I was getting it wrong. And I'm putting air quotes, if you're listening on the podcast, I'm getting it wrong, right? So I learned in education, I do what you tell me to do. And then I get a, I get an A plus, I get a 100. Right. You tell me what you want, I do what you want, I get an A plus, same thing in work, you tell me what you want, I do what you want, then, you know, I get applauded at work. But through coaching, she wouldn't tell me what to do. She just kept pushing what I thought was true, kept pushing what I thought the eight plus was the line for eight plus kept moving. And that frustrated me because I'm used to just making the mark. But what I learned is, I don't want to just make the mark, I don't want to just do what somebody else tells me I need to do. I don't want to live in somebody else's box for me, I want to be everything that God created me to be I want to die empty. I want to do everything that he assigned me in this earth to do when I go to heaven. I want everything that was invested in me here on Earth, I want it left here on Earth and seeded into somebody else. I don't want to make that Mark anymore. I want to go beyond that Mark, I want to go beyond the expectations of myself, and the expectations of other people. I want to be everything that I was created to be everything that I was created to be. And in order to do that I needed someone in my life who was willing to push me not just applaud me, not just patting me on the back, but to push me and as high achieving people. Sometimes it's hard to find somebody in your life that's going to push you. Sometimes it's hard because people are so proud of you. They're so proud of you. And they're so used to you making the mark that they settle for good enough. But a coach, a good coach will push you beyond good enough and push you into everything. That is a possibility. And that's why you need a coach. So number one, you need a counselor. Number two, you need a coach. And number three, you need a community. You need a community, with the women that I've been coaching, what I find is the coaching itself is transformational. But the piece that they need, in addition to the coaching is a community surrounding them, a community of like minded people, a community that will fortify and solidify what the work that they're doing through the coaching people who are on a similar journey as them who can be supportive, who will understand because when you take this journey people around you might not understand it might not make sense to people why you're pushing beyond good enough. It might not make sense to people why you continue to pursue when your life seems to be pretty doggone good. It might not make sense to people why you're making these changes in your life. You need a community who understands the journey you are on. You need to be surrounded by people All who are on a similar journey so that you can hold each other accountable, so that you can celebrate each other. But so that you can be in an environment where you are understood and where your journey is understood. And that's what powerful community does for us. That's what it means to be surrounded by people who are on a similar path. Because we can hold each other accountable, we can move together, when your convenient community doesn't understand your power community will say go for it. I see you, I get you, I know what you're doing. Go get it, you can go further. You can do more. You can be everything you need power, community. You need power community, you need community that remind you of what's on the inside of you on the days that you forget. You need community that reminds you of what you've been called to do. On the days that you don't feel like doing it. You need community that will pick you up when you fall. And that will not allow you to quit. You need power community around you. We were not created to do life alone. We were not created to do life alone. We are communal creatures. We were always created to live life and community. And you need the right community you need power community. Oh friends. So after you assess the damage on your road to recovery, I encourage you, I implore you to seek counseling, to connect with a coach and to become a part of powerful community. You need community in your life. I do want to share something with you. I've heard many of you you sent me DMS or emails and you're looking for power community. And I hear you, I hear you. We have a heart work community I'm about to take that to the next level. In the heart work community, we're going to start meeting once a month to coach each other to or I'll be the coach but to support each other to be on the path together. If you're looking for power community, the heart work community might be for you. So keep your ears open. I'll let you know when that's all set up and ready for you. But we we've been in a Facebook group, but we need to take it to another level. There's something in my heart to share with you. So I'll share that later. Whatever community you need to be a part of counseling first. You need a coach and you need community. As always friends, you are powerful. You are significant. And you are loved. Love always PBJ