E103: Unlock Your Potential - Leaning Into Authenticity feat. Dr. Tori Ellis

Are you looking for ways to ignite your passion in life? Have you found your path? Finding your authentic self can help unlock insights that can help you on your journey. In this episode, we talk to Dr. Tori Ellis, a human and organizational psychologist and life coach, about the importance of helping people be their authentic selves. Dr. Ellis shares her passion for helping others and her belief that personal development is essential for both individual and organizational success. She also talks about why she believes helping people be their authentic selves is so important, and shares some of the impacts she has seen in her work.

Book your love Tarot card readings with Jenn and use code VDAY25 for 25% off.

Check out Dr. Tori at her website, on Instagram and LinkedIn. 

Transcript

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You are now listening to Chakras and Shotguns. Welcome to Chakras and Shotguns, the podcast that guides you on a journey of spiritual development and personal preparedness. I'm Mik, a marketer, energy healer, and prepper. And I'm Jen. I used to be a lawyer. Now I'm a wellness entrepreneur, yoga instructor, and today I'm a curator of beautiful things. I love it. I love it. Well, growing up, many of us learn to adapt ourselves and our personalities to different surroundings. And as we've grown up, we've learned to wear masks in certain settings or in certain relationships. And today we're going to just Throw all that to the side, forget all that and really focus in on this idea of being our authentic selves. We're welcoming today, Dr. Tori Ellis, who is a life coach and she works a lot with her clients on how they can really find their true path through authenticity. But before we get into that, it's February. Love is in the air. Have you booked your discounted love reading with me? You haven't, you need the code. The code is V Day 25. Get into it. Find out where your boo's at. Find out if you need to leave that boo alone. Find out if you need to do some inner work before you meet that boo. Find out if that boo is boo boo, you know what I'm saying? You can go to shockersandshocknames. com slash readings and input that code V Day 25 to get 25 percent off with Jen. All right, let's begin as we always do with a breathwork meditation exercise to put us into a mindful place. All right, let's get started. So today's theme of this episode is authenticity. And so I really wanted to ground ourselves into our individual bodies and then also have a little moment of free play that's true to you. So go ahead and find a comfortable seat. You can always lie down. I always say that go lie down and let's begin. Place your hands face down somewhere on your body. I usually like my belly and my heart. Sometimes you can just put them down on your legs, just wherever feels comfortable for you. I want to start to connect with the breath. Take a deep inhale in through your nose. Feel your belly push against your hand and exhale that breath back out through your mouth. Let's do that again. And inhale through your nose. And exhale that breath back out through your mouth. One more time together. Inhale through your nose. This time seal your lips closed and exhale back out through your nose. Start to allow yourself to breathe normally. And try to match the lengths of your inhales to your exhales. I'd like for you to start to find Some organic movement that's authentic to you. Listening to your intuition. Where does your body start to move? Do you start to sway side to side? Maybe you make small circles. If you're lying down, maybe you start to sway your feet. Move your head, saying yes or no. Just really taking this opportunity to go within and listen to yourself. What do you want to do? How do you show up in this body today? What is your unique and authentic expression of self? And what is your intuition and your body moving intuitively telling you? Do you need more play? Are you feeling playful? Maybe you're rocking yourself. Maybe you need a little bit more nurturing, a little bit more self care. Perhaps you're finding pleasure, sensuality. The only thing that I would ask you not to do is to pass any judgment on anything that comes up in this moment. This is all just information. It's all a conversation that's private with you. If you're not already wiggling your toes, start to wiggle your toes, maybe your fingers. Really rock your head side to side and take a big inhale in through your nose and sigh that breath out through your mouth. And start to flicker your eyes open. Come back into the room. And feel some gratitude for this moment that you created for yourself today. Thanks so much for that Jenn. Another great breath work. Let's get into our main topic and I will introduce our guest. So Dr. Tori Ellis is a transformational life and business coach, best selling author and entrepreneur. She holds a master's in industrial organizational psychology and a doctorate in human and organizational psychology. She's a millennial dedicated to, uh, providing her peers and future generations with tools for wellness. Positive psychology and entrepreneurship. She's also a new mom and she shares some thoughts on motherhood with us as well. So without further ado, here's our conversation with Dr. Tori Ellis. Dr. Tori, thank you so much for being here. Thank you for having me. How are you guys? Good. Good. So let's get right into it. So what drew you to human and organizational psychology and life coaching? Um, well, I mean, I always had a passion for wanting to help others and psychology has been My go to from the time I was in high school. So after I finished my master's in IO with a focus on occupational health, I jumped right into my psych D and that was in human organizational psychology. So I was able to get more focused in on individuals, more focused in on the organization and you know, how I can definitely make a change from the leadership down. And just to clarify, what is IO? So folks know what that, what that is. Oh, IO is industrial organizational psychology. Can you give like a layman definition of organizational psychology? Like, what are you really getting into? So layman terms, I do business psychology. So the organization. internal, external customers, your team dynamics, the team outputs, leadership, making sure your leadership dynamics are, you know, put together. So all those structures from the typical how to run the organization, but getting into like the nitty gritty of the personal side of it and making sure that that organization in itself is flowing. So a lot of your work in live coaching is really about helping people be their authentic self. Why is this kind of a focus of yours in like, what do you see as the impact of that? So personal development is, is huge for me. And I personally, on my own journey of growth and definitely understanding myself more, coming into more of who Tori is, it was very beneficial in helping me put together my purpose, really finding and understanding my why more. Like I had the idea, but. What was driving me more for it? You know, what was that personal connection more than just wanting to help others. And I feel like being authentic and allowing people to feel comfortable in that authenticity is key because everything out here nowadays, you can look at social media and it's a facade. Yeah. So you get lost in the sauce, as I say, and you try to uphold these. These masks and these appearances that you want to show to other people, but sometimes that's very hard to maintain. And in that process, you lose yourself in that. So I'm really big on the authentic person because then now you're not losing yourself. You're constantly being who you are and what you're meant to do here on this earth and then able to just give forth your essence. Yeah, I think that's something that we definitely see a lot on social media, to your point. What I'm starting to see is like, there's accounts who are getting a ton of attention, lots of followers, and they'll essentially end up having a lot of copycats that come after it. People who think, what I have to look like, this is what I have to sound like in order to be successful. And I think a lot of times people can see that it's inauthentic to first speak. When we think about like what success and what even manifestation looks like and how you can actually be successful in that, it's real. Bringing that authenticity to itself. Right. Because I feel like another thing is, you know, your vision of success or your version of success is going to be completely different from everybody else's. So when you try to put yourself in this box of what other people deem is successful for you. Are you really enjoying what they think that success is? Some people have a more moral compass and they find their joy in just doing the work that fills their bucket. While others is. They're driven by the cashflow that's going to come behind it. And if you have people's deemed that the cashflow, the success, and that's not where you stand, you're chasing a dollar and you're going to forever chase that dollar that It's never going to really fill you up. So you have to definitely find where you are and what it is that you love to do and your authentic being, but then also what you deem is successful for yourself. And then that's pretty much how you can expand and, you know, grow within your business or just grow within your, your own being. Yeah. I love that. I love that. You're also talking about going with the year and like taking that time to like be with yourself. Me and Mik talk a lot about celebrities and how. They used to be like, this is where I'm trying to be. This is what I'm like, and how certain accounts, certain celebrities, when they pop up on TikTok, which is kind of become a platform where they want people to be more authentic. It's like, I want to see Kylie Jenner over here on TikTok talking about what's in her purse. That's, I don't connect with that. Fitting with that and like tuning out the images of everybody else and all of the noise of like what it is that you're supposed to look like. I think that's really beautiful. Yeah, I mean, I noticed now too, being authentic is now becoming the it thing. And before that wasn't the case. So I guess now after all this time, I feel like even with the pandemic that happened, it required people to really sit with themselves, sit with what's going on. And, you know, he wasn't able to be around a ton of people. So now you're dealing with just yourself or your family and you're having those inward thoughts. And if you weren't taking the time out to do that, then it was like, okay, when every society opened back up, what have you been doing this whole pandemic? No, that's of our journey for sure. I think the pandemic allowed us to shed a lot of expectations, a lot of conditioning that were kind of ingrained in us as, as children that we were really, you know, the world stopped. Right. So we could take our mind off of, of being in the office or. Suddenly kids to school or things that were, you know, just not really that important and really spend time going into meditation and like figuring out what exactly we were passionate about. And that changed a lot of the trajectory, the trajectory of our lives. Yeah, I definitely did that. I felt too, I think it was like one of my goals I wanted to do was find out more of my family lineage. And then unpacking that during the pandemic actually opened up. Me to understand myself more like you go through those journey of who am I, and that who am I is not just, you know, who am I today, it goes back to, you know, what family did I come from, like, you know, who was in my lineage, because if I'm an entrepreneur, there had to be an entrepreneur before at some point, you know, or had to be an entrepreneurial spirit that was there if even if they didn't call it that back then. So being able to dive deep into that, it was like able to understand myself even. better and then seeing also too, like you talked about those unpacking those things that you had to unlearn. So yeah, definitely. Definitely. It was a blessing. It was a blessing in the curse of pandemic, but it was definitely, definitely eyeopening for sure. What are some of the like obstacles that you've seen, like when you're working with some of your clients, like, and you're trying to help them get to that authentic self. What are some of those obstacles that people run into and have a hard time kind of digesting to, to get to that place? Accountability. That's the first one. Accountability. Because sometimes, you know, the first step is always taking a hard look in the mirror. And that's not easy for a lot of people sometimes. Like there's things that, you know, traumas that are embedded. That probably they have shut their brain off for, for years that they don't want to talk about, like, if I want to go work out, it's hard for me to sit here and be like, all right, I'm gonna get to the gym today, you know, let's see when life starts life in and you're like, okay, I got the two year old, I got to make dinner, I got to do this, I got to do that, but then it's like, okay, if I can't make it to the gym, I'm going to at least stretch for 30 minutes, I'm going to take it. A 10 minute mindful sitting and just meditate for a bit. Those are more attainable, but it's having those conversations and holding yourself accountable. It's more just what is attainable for you at the time. And accountability is one of the biggest things. It was one of my struggles. It's definitely one of the struggles that I see with my clients. I have that struggle. It's to the point where I like, I don't want to tell anybody my goals because when I fall off, you know, that's my business. Those are my own things I need to unpack on my own time. I hate it. Let's go back a little bit to inauthenticity and, and talking about specifically like life goals and business goals. How do you see that getting in the way of people reaching a goal that they want to achieve? Are you doing this for yourself? Are you doing this for someone else's position on what they feel is successful? You know, when you make these smart goals or you make these goals that you wanna attain for your business or yourself. All right. What was the reason for these goals? Mm-Hmm. That's the first question. You want this goal? Why? What is your reason for it? What's your purpose for it? You have a reason for it. You have a purpose for it. It's like, okay, you have a little bit more motivation behind it, but if you just say, oh, I just wanna make this amount of money because. My business would be successful. It's like, that's not enough. Like, what are you doing? Like, what is the big, big, big goal, the bigger picture. And when you are inauthentic and you don't have like your version of your bigger picture, it's a clouded judgment. Cause now it's like, wait, do you see this end goal? And that's how people end up wanting this hamster wheel of, I'm always chasing the dollar because you're not pouring that passion into it. So it falls apart and people can see when it is just not. Your love, like people can see when it's not something that you want to do. This is not what you want to do. So why are we doing it? It's like, it can block a lot. Yeah. I've seen that as well with working with folks is in, in what I often hear them say is. They feel like they have to do this because of mom or dad's expectations, or maybe they just want to stunt on Instagram or whatever that may be, and they don't have a deeper, kind of more meaningful why to who they're, they're pursuing. And so if I'm hearing you correctly, that's, that's really what it starts with, right? Sitting down and creating that, this is why I want to do XYZ, this is why I want to start this business, why I want to. Attain this title at this company or whatever it may be. And so having that as your motivation factor is, is really key to reaching the goal. So, and it's a good time of year to do that too. I feel like I just got an assignment. Like I need to sit down with like all the things that we're dealing with and like really drilling down on the why. And not because you know, they. They say the spring is really the new year, so like definitely do start, start that now and make up that time and figure out like, okay, what am I trying to blossom this spring? Let's talk a little bit about like corporate settings, right? We both have a corporate background, Jen and I do. And I know one of the things that I I've heard oftentimes, you know, bring your full self to work. And even though, you know, you would hear that phrase, it felt a little empty, felt like you really couldn't. In that instance, especially in the corporate, because there's certain standards you have to uphold in corporate America, which is unfortunate. So as much as they want to say, you know, bring your authentic self, you are more than welcome to be who you are and how you are and show all your true colors and everything like that. They really don't have the space for it because it's corporate America. Like, you know, it's not that easy. What are you in corporate America? What do you feel is. Your authentic self, because it, it can get a little iffy with how the rules and regulations can be. So, so you gotta, you know, tread lightly. And it's just a matter of figuring out what's a healthy boundary for you and how are you going to navigate that? The dress though thing, that actually came up this morning, I don't know if you remember it. We were having a conversation. Our daughter's in private school, they wear a uniform. She's sticking to the right day, you know, sports day. She has her sports uniform for that. She has bows, her hair's together. Because we are millennial Black people, Black parents, and we're like, Oh, you're going to look the part. No one's going to say that out of bounds. Right? Right. I mean, I see other kids. Who come to school and these are like, there's not a, a money issue. Yeah. It's like they got holes in their pants or they're not Mm-Hmm. uniform. And I'm like, so what's the point of the uniform? Yeah. Right. And then they think about when I was in, at a law firm and I was like, okay, there's a dress code. I'm gonna look like a lawyer. I'm gonna be, and then I, I meant like, oh, you must spend so much money on clothes. And I'm like, what do you want from me? Yeah. Because if the, if our doctor's not in dress code or if she didn't meet the, the dress standards of the law firm, it would be a problem. But it's like Right. The, the expectation. And because we're one of the few Black people in both spaces, like we still are going to receive some sort of comment about Of course. Yes. Yeah. So then I was like, I, and I wasn't even thinking ahead to this conversation. I was like, this is why I should have just been myself the whole, the whole time. Instead of looking after somebody else's standard. That part, and it's like, you know, damned if you do, damned if you don't, like someone's not going to be happy with it. And I think that goes with just being authentically yourself. Like you're not going to please everybody, you know, someone's going to say something regardless. I think too, it goes back for like, you know, as being black millennial parents too, we had parents who, and our grandparents, I went to a private school my whole life. So from elementary to high school, I was wearing uniforms. And even living in the South during the summer with my grandmother, my grandmother was like, you're not going out here with your hair looking a certain kind of way. So these people are saying something about you. And it's just like, it's a, it's a thing that they were embedded with for years. So it's like, we kind of carry it. We don't realize it until we have these instances now with our kids. And it's like, geez, like, huh, this is not something I learned. Um, where I work or the school my kids going to, but from my parents and my parents parents, it's like, that this goes back a while. Have you changed your perspective or changed the way in which you speak to your kids versus like how you were spoken to by some of the like standards and like fitting into certain expectations, I guess, that society has for us? Most definitely. Most definitely. I feel like I had to, because I don't want my daughter, she's two now, I don't want her to go through that identity crisis that I did, you know, trying to fit in and wanting to always please people and into that people pleasing thing, because it's not about, you know, when you're trying to fit in, you're trying to people please, that's really just the bottom line of it, and when you're trying to people please, you are fixing yourself up to just match other people's Goal of success or their level of, you know, likeability. And when you're doing that, you're, you start to lose your responsive. No, no, it was a complete sentence, you know? So I have to have those conversations with my daughter now, because unpacking that I started unpacking that. I'm 30 now. I started unpacking it in my 20s. So by 24, 25, I'm starting to unpack that. That was not an easy thing to unpack. I don't want her to have to take 25 years to unpack something like that. When I can instill in her now, you are beautiful in every shape or form. Be yourself at all times. People may like it. People may love it. People may not be here for it. And it is not up to you to decide how to make them like it. Who's meant to be in your corner is going to be in your corner. And if they're not, so be it. It's okay. I'd love for you to go into a little bit more of that, that unpacking and what that looked like for you. Cause I think that, I know Jen has had to do some of that unpacking as well. I feel like it's a common thing that I hear from particularly Black women from the South or who spend a lot of time in the South. Were they kind of conditioned in a certain way to be people pleasers, to, to not use no as a complete sentence. And so I'm sure there are, again, people are listening to this and they're like, well, how do I like get started on that journey of unpacking and realizing that no can be a complete sentence. So if you could talk a little bit about that and Jim feel free to chime in if you want to talk about your experience as well. I want to say that candidly, a lot of life lessons brought you to that point, whether it was either. The friends I had around me during that time or the particular guy I was dating and it just wasn't working and I was just solely unhappy, you know, and instead of me pointing the finger outward, you're not making me happy. I have three of those fingers looking back at me like, okay, why are you not happy within yourself first? What are you not happy with? And it was trying to fit those standards, like I'm not pretty enough, you know, I'm not good enough. And those are common things that you, you see because there's, we come in all shapes and sizes. And when you see people, I idealize body structure or hair structure or bone structure, and it's not yours. And then you get teased growing up about your. body structure. I had a very athletic build, so I didn't start forming any type of womanly body until I was in college. So I looked like a ten year old boy, okay? Like, how, how am I considered attractive when I have friends or people who are around who are voluptuous and these, these guys I'm liking? It's like, yo, she's so beautiful, and I'm sitting here like, So what am I? And I'm always a friend. What am, what am I? So it was a matter of me loving myself first and what was beautiful about me. And a lot of times people say, Tori, you have a beautiful spirit. You have a beautiful smile. You have beautiful eyes. But if that wasn't in the eye of the beholder, it wasn't enough for me. I had to realize that looks can die, but my spirit and my essence was something that's always going to stay the same. So it was unpacking that for me. And then realizing like, you know, my body is beautiful just cause he don't like it. Don't mean that it's not beautiful. I'm beautiful. I'm enough. Like, and I don't have to be strong all the time. It's okay for me to be like, I'm not okay right now. And that was another thing to always trying to be okay. And always saying I'm fine when I'm not fine. That was the other part that I had to unpack and feel comfortable being vulnerable enough to say that I'm not okay. So being able to voice myself and finding my voice was what I had to unpack because I was just able to always be there and help others and be that strong friend. But I also did need that love poured into me too. And We now talk about, you know, the masculine and the feminine part of things, like I'm just now being able to become or feel more comfortable in my feminine part because my masculine has been leading this whole time. It was a lot of unpacking I had to do, man, like it's layers, it's layers, it's layers. And it's still a learning thing because even too sometimes you get back into that, that, that regular grind of just getting things done. So it was a lot of unpacking I had to do for sure. I love that. It definitely resonates with me. As a mom, well, I used to beat up on myself cause I started probably doing this work in my thirties, my early thirties. And I was just like, I really been out here and living like this. And people have been taking advantage of me and being a people pleaser. And why didn't I know this sooner? And I was like, well, at least our kids will have some, some of those tools in their, in their tool belts. To like not have to do some of that work. So that definitely resonated with me, but also I think people think, Oh, I need to do some boundary work or I'm a people pleaser that their issue is being too accommodating or too nice. But there was something that you talked about in there about, it's really about the full range of emotion. Like I, I got through some of the boundary work and now I'm realizing like, it's okay to be angry. Mm hmm. It clicks for me because I tell our kid fed all the time. I'm like, you can be angry. It's what you do with it that matters, right? The whole time. Like I would have a hard time. Like if I had an issue with Nick, I'd be like, well, you know, I had an issue with this and like, I've started being like, Hey, I'm angry. I'm mad. And being like, is that okay? Is, can I be mad? I didn't have, I wasn't giving myself that full range of emotion or being like, Hey, I'm mad or Hey, I'm really sad today. And that is very vulnerable. Scary. But also, like, I love myself and being able to, to do the, the highs and the lows and being okay with that and sitting with that and just like, acknowledging, you know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. It's giving yourself the grace. When you give and people please, you give everybody grace, everybody, you give a ton of grace and the person the most that you don't give the grace to is yourself. So that same grace and compassion that you give to everybody else, you gotta do it with you too. So I know this work can be hard and a lot of times you have to kind of remind yourself of the work that you've done. So do you have like a mantra or like a guiding principle that you use when things are a little tough and it's hard to really show up authentically? Yes. And I don't, it's not just with the authentic. I think it's just with overall. And I started saying this as I was going through this. Unpacking, every obstacle is an opportunity and every loss is a lesson. Every rejection is a blessing. You're not meant to be in every space. Sometimes those losses, they come with lessons because now you're gaining some more knowledge that you could turn into wisdom and every obstacle is an opportunity to grow, it may be tough, you may not have the tools for it, so now you are growing a skill set. And adding more tools to your toolbox, and that goes into, you know, I'm not the same person I was yesterday. So, as I'm always ever changing, and life is always ever changing, just be comfortable in that I am always growing and evolving, and I am getting comfortable with the unknown. Do you have a story about a client that you can share about how you've helped them navigate or have a breakthrough towards authenticity in your coaching with them? Interesting enough, I had someone that I worked with, I want to say two years ago, and she's a single mom. They were going through a transition where her and the kid's father were starting to live in separate housing. So, you know, she had to go through her changes with that. But then also she's a doctorate student and, you know, she loves her kids, like, she makes those efforts to be present all the time. And I had to tell her, like, you have to pour back into yourself, like, you have to take those moments to pour back into yourself. You have to take those moments to know that it's okay to not be okay and that whatever feelings that you have is valid. We did some work together. We stayed close. I had an event that I went to for my cousin the other day, and she popped up. She was like, hey, I want to come. So she came. She pulled me aside afterwards, and she was like, I am not okay. This doctor is killing me right now, and I need to talk. And just with that, just seeing how she was able to voice her vulnerability, voice that she wasn't okay, voice that she was, Going through a tough time with this doctor and she was okay and comfortable with doing that and just taking that step to come to this wellness event and she never did it before so she came to this wellness event and it was just like beautiful to see because we talked about these things before and now I'm seeing in live action like her be able to be like hey this is just it's a lot those steps are key and even though it sounds like It's a low point. I feel like that was one of the highest points for her because she's able to say when she's not okay. And then being able to be like, all right, how am I going to fix this? Because now she wants that solution and she wants that help. And she's allowing herself to get that help and to get that support. Even if it's me listening to her on the phone as she vents, you have the support and you ask for it and you're getting it. And that load off of, I just feel better just saying it. That was enough for me. So that, that is one of those stories and just, just seeing how she was able to evolve in that. It's awesome. Yeah. She's building connection, community, finding resources just by being vulnerable. Yeah. All right. So Dr. Tory, if people want to work with you and go on a similar journey, where can they find you? soundofbusiness. org. And I do have some links on the services page where you can book the discovery call to see if we fit because it's all about alignment and making sure that we are right for each other. If you want to go on my social media, you have the LinkedIn, which is very professional. Just type in my name, Tori Ellis, with a comma and PsyD, so P S Y, period, and a capital D. If you want something a little bit more personal, more me, and then you see the family and me with my work life balance of my two year old and all the extra, the travels I take her on, and just what I love to do for my self care and just being human, you can go to my Instagram, always underscore Dr. Tori, T O R I I. Thank you so much. Thank you for having me. Thanks to Dr. Torrey again for that beautiful conversation about honoring ourselves and how we show up in the world. That was really beautiful. And I think there's a lot of healing in that of really sitting with yourself and finding your truth. Yeah. Alright guys, friendly reminder to get yourself a love tarot card reading with Jun and use code V Day 25 or 25 percent off, shotgunsandshotguns. com slash readings. And finally, if you're loving this show, please subscribe and give us five stars wherever you listen. Namaste.