Episode 43: Failing Forward With The "Questions Queen" Monica Elias

Do you avoid things that might embarrass you?
Do you HATE losing?
Do you run from things that are uncomfortable or that you might fail at?

In this episode we are going to teach you how to retrain your brain to engage in the battle of spiritual warfare as you learn to fail forward. Failure is not something that happens to you, it is an opportunity to grow you. It is a way to send your mind out on a mission for evidence that can help propel you into holiness.

If you struggle with the "F-word" in prayer or daily living, come join me and the "Questions Queen," Monica Elias we we teach you some essential questions that can get you unstuck when failure is keeping you down.

Next Steps! 

• Download your Daily Examen For Every Temperament: HERE
• Follow Kylie on IG HERE

Connect With Monica Elias

• 5 Fails Email Challenge: tinyurl.com/5failschallenge
• Self-Care the Catholic Way Training: tinyurl.com/catholicselfcare
• Follow Monica on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/monicaeliascoaching/
• Book a call with Monica: https://go.oncehub.com/monicaeliascoaching
• Get on the waitlist for Sacred Wounds: www.sacredwoundsbook.com
• All links: linktr.ee/wholeheartedfiatcoaching

Transcript

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Grab your pen and paper friends, because today we are talking all things. Questions. The best questions that you can use to keep you moving forward. Every time you fail because after all failure, isn't really failing. Failing is just learning. And learning is how we succeed. So cozy up in your favorite place. And join me. as I interviewed the questions, queen Monica. Elias. Hello, beautiful souls, and welcome to the Persistence in Prayer podcast hosted by Catholic Mindset coach, wife, mother, educator, and speaker, Kylie Hine. Kylie is passionate about helping you deepen your relationship with God through the power of prayer. This podcast is a space for high achievers who want to do it all, but also want to prioritize their spiritual life and grow in faith. Join us as we explore the beauty of persistence in prayer and the transformative impact it can have on our lives. Get ready to discover practical tips, insights, and inspiration to help you develop a daily prayer practice and cultivate a deeper sense of trust in God's plan for your life. Let's journey together towards a more fulfilled and faithful life as we invite the Holy Spirit in. Let's begin. Hello everyone and welcome. Today I am joined by the beautiful Monica Elias. Monica is a Catholic mindset coach who loves to coach women who aspire to set the world ablaze on their relationship with time and with themselves to create more time to do the things that matter most. She has a background in mathematics and education and is a wife and mother to four. She lives in Australia and loves all things books, personal development, learning, growth, and possibility. Monica, thank you so much for joining me. I am super excited about this to just chat in a non coaching setting and to hear all of your wisdom, because I know that you have a lot. Thanks, Karly. Yeah. I'm really excited to like, you've coached me quite a few times in the Metanoia Academy. So yeah, it's going to be fun to have an extended conversation. Yes. And to be on just a different, side of this because I've coached you, but you are also a really great coach. And I know that because we've had mutual clients and I've heard people talk about you. Will you tell us just a little bit about you, your family, where you live and how you stumbled into coaching? Absolutely. So, yeah, as you mentioned, I have three, three kids and one on the way. So my kids are seven, five and two and a half, two boys and a girl. And number four is another boy. We both come from very boy heavy families. My husband had six. Boys out of nine children. And I have four brothers in my family out of six children. So a lot of boys. I'm 28 weeks pregnant just getting into the final stretch. Um, and, yeah, we live in country Australia, Like around the Albury area, which is on the border of New South Wales and Victoria, really beautiful part of the world, far away from the coast, majority of the population in Australia live on the coast. So, as you start going inland, you start getting into very small, very small populations, but yeah, we really, we love it. we moved here from the city and it's been the best, coaching I found through. Sterling Jake with who I listened to her. She had another podcast years ago called coffee and pearls. I listened to that for years and then, she found coaching and then I worked with her, through her membership for Catholic moms and I just like. was blown away at how quickly, I uncovered all these fears that were holding me back and just learned how to move through them, overcome them. I was like, whoa, life can be so different when you, when fear doesn't stay in the driver's seat. And Yeah, it was just so exciting and very quickly, I was like, could I do this? Like this is exactly what I would love to do. Like I had done a lot of mathematics tutoring. And I always tried to. bring, like, I didn't realize it, but I would try and bring in, goals and work on habits kind of on the side. But really when you're doing maths tutoring, there's only time to mostly do like questions, the things that they're struggling with. So to realize, oh, this is an actual thing you can do, work on goals, like just work on goals and talk about all that stuff and personal development. That's really awesome. And it felt like it brought together All of my skill sets, it was like a moment of, this is what I was meant to do, which was really fun. And What I'm still, I'm still like processing it, to be honest, but, I contributed a chapter to a book with a bunch of other Catholic coaches, one of whom is Sterling J. Quith. And so it feels like I sort of have come full circle and I would not have expected that that would be happening a couple of years ago. And I still, yeah, I've, I only realized that last night, I was like, I can't believe that I, like, I'm a co author with this lady who I've looked up to for years, she's inspired me for so long, and this is my life now that things like this happen. That's just, that was just, yeah, a cool realization. I am new to the Sterling J. Gwyth world, but so many people have told me these incredible things, so I've started digging into her podcast and reaching out to her and learning more, so It's great to hear more people who she has inspired who are now going out and doing this work and I think it just shows like the ripple effect of the work that you and I are both doing as well. You never know where that one coaching session is going to lead someone else because I don't think you can fully understand what coaching does until you see the transformation in someone else. And when you start to see how many people are transformed around you, it's like, I want more of that. We need more of that in the world. And a huge congratulations to you. I'm so excited to see your book. When I saw you post recently, I was like, Oh, this is amazing. I want to hear more. Yeah. So it's called, it'll be out once this airs, it's called, Sacred Wounds and it's a collection of 20 Catholic women, their stories of, healing and encounters with Christ through coaching and personal development, essentially. It's gonna be really, really beautiful and impactful, I think. I can't wait to read it. Also, I just have to comment. You came from tutoring math and I was a math teacher for 13 years. I don't know if you knew that about me. No, I didn't. Yeah, so I taught for 13 years and I was really fascinated by math mindset. So, Jo Bowler is big in the math world. She talks a ton about mindset. And so I started just digging into all this research on mindset and different studies that they had done on London taxi drivers and the way that their brains worked and the way that people remembered things and pursued things. And that is actually what led me into coaching, because like you, it's like, I want to do more of this, but in the classroom, there's never that time to go deep. It's always wide and surface level, and I really wanted to go deeper, and that's what led me to coaching, so I just think that that's fascinating that we share that in common. Yeah, I had this idea, I've still, I don't know, we'll see, we'll see if I, if I make it happen one day, but I uncovered like all these math, mathematical habits of the best math students, as to how they learn and how they show up to class and how they think about their learning as well, and how they think about problem solving and, I was like, I really want to teach this to all of my students, but there isn't time in the classroom. You're just trying to cover all of the content. And so I was like, really, what they need is they need their parents to know this so that the parent can support them. So I have this idea, maybe one day of making like some kind of course program thing that helps parents. Help their kids with mathematics because there's just, there's just so many like really basic things that they, if they could just implement a few of those, it would dramatically shift how they, how they learn, in the classroom and at home. Well, if you ever take that on, let me know, because I, I think it's so needed if you can get parents to show up. But it's not just transforming their learning in the classroom, just their learning in general about everything and the way that it opens up their minds to everything else. Yeah. And like, if you think about like the majority, like majority of kids in my experience hate maths, they have a really negative story about it. They think I'm terrible at it. I'll never be good at it. I always get terrible marks. It's so boring. The teacher doesn't like me or I don't like the teacher, like just all of these things. And they're all just such. draining, unmotivating, like they're going to create draining and unmotivating emotions that like, like dread and discouragement and all of this. And so of course that's going to influence the way that they show up, the way that they learn. So. Yeah. And when their parents It just all, like, made so much sense when I discovered coaching. I was like, oh, I already was onto this, and now I, really get it. Yes. Amen. Okay, so we have a mutual friend who I've heard call you the questions queen. So I'm curious, what is it about questions that you think helps make us better versions of ourselves? Um. Yeah. She, I, Nikki, shout out to Nikki. Um, I, she said that and I was like, I'm going to claim that. I love that. And actually I was in a, like a kind of mastermind all of last year and we would have these like breakout rooms and people kept telling me, you ask really good questions. I was like, Oh, okay. This is like now becoming part of my self concept. Thank you. So I think the questions that we ask ourselves influence the answers. That we get and what our brains focus on, like our brain is like a supercomputer and whatever we keep telling it, whatever thoughts we keep thinking is the program that we're going to keep running. And so if we keep, running programs that are focused on our current problems and where we are and all the ways we're stuck and all the ways that we're. Not measuring up. We're gonna keep creating the same results in our life. And so the power of questions is it can start sending your brain on a mission to look in a different direction, look for different evidence, focus on different things. And we, our brains love to focus on the now, um, the comfort of the now, the difficulties of the now versus rather than our future. But the more that we can focus on. The future we want to create and who we want to become. Becoming the saint in heaven, like focusing on where we want to go. The more we can direct our brain there, the more that's going to change the way that we show up. Today and accelerate us into becoming the women that we want to be. So questions help us, they can help us use our like higher intellect, to really think about our thinking, to evaluate it. So rather than if you think about, maybe you find yourself asking the questions like, why do these things always happen to me? Why is my life so hard? Why can't I get it together? Why am I always behind? The answers that you are going to get to that, it's just going to be, that's just going to keep you, keep you stuck there versus asking yourself things like, what does the saint version of me in heaven think about my current situation? What if this thing that I would like to do, what if it was really possible rather than, Focusing on all the reasons why it's not possible or you're not capable. What if it was possible? Like, let's play with possibility. How can I lean on my strengths? How can I lean on the things that really motivate me? What if this could be fun? What if it doesn't have to be hard? What if it doesn't have to take a really long time? Like we sometimes think, um, like I've done that recently with. I've been really well, I've discovered that anger has sort of been in control. I've let it be in the driver's seat in many different areas. So I was like, I really want to change my relationship with anger. I want to have freedom from anger to have it, to feel it and not let it go in the driver's seat. And to learn whatever it is, it's there to like, tell me it's like a signal to tell me something is happening interiorly that I, that I need to look at. And when I first started, I thought this is going to take such a long time. It's going to take so much inner work. Changes are like really slow and I've been really sitting with like, what if it doesn't have to take a long time? I think there's a distinction to be made between, um, seeing, like, you can. Maybe it's going to take a long time for it to become really permanent and this is now a permanent change as into who, as to who I am and the way that I habitually operate. But as you would experience with coaching and with clients, actually you can start seeing changes very quickly, like you can start to see progress almost immediately. And if we can focus on that, it doesn't have to take a really long time for you to start seeing changes to make progress. it just might take a while for it to be a permanent change and you have to keep at it. And that's just, that's just completely changed the journey. And of course, it hasn't taken very long at all. And I feel like I'm already in a vastly different place. It's only been a few weeks. Um, so yeah, that, that's really exciting. I think it's the beauty of good questions. We know Jesus was the ultimate question master, right? The questions that he asked and, the ones that come up again and again in Scripture. But just like you said, it's to help us go out and seek a different kind of evidence. So even when we go back to the very simple question of what do you seek? Where are you going? When we go back to those very simple questions from Scripture, we might think we know, but when we try to articulate it, especially when you're in a conversation with a coach or with someone else, and you have to articulate it and be really clear on it, that's a lot harder. Or it just takes a little more brain power, because sometimes we aren't really clear, and then we say it out loud and we're like, Oh! That's actually not what I want. That doesn't, that sounds terrible. That doesn't even sound good. And I've, I've been all worked up about something that really isn't even relevant. I want to go back. Can you repeat this question again? It's something about, you said, what does the future Saint Mi say about this? Will you repeat that question? Yep. So if you imagine the version of you who is in heaven, who like you're really there, you've run the race, you're, you're in heaven, you're face to face with our Lord, you're experiencing all the joy. What are you going to think about your current situation? The current problems you're facing, who you're being in the current situation. What are you going to think about that? And you can also kind of do it, like, what will I think about this in 10 years time? Or, or the version of me who in maybe six months has solved this problem, what will I think about it then? And it's most likely going to be something along the lines of. This wasn't as big as of a deal as I, as I thought it was, or as it seemed like at the time. And it's totally solvable 'cause you're thinking of it as the person who has solved it. Right. and I'm totally capable of doing it. But also, like when we look back at past things, obstacles that we've overcome, normally it's pretty easy to see, oh, I learned this from that. And I'm actually grateful for everything that I've gone through We often struggle to find that in the moment, but what if you could grow the habit of finding it in the moment? What if you don't have to wait for all of that hindsight? You just be like, I know that I'm learning lessons. I can look for the lessons now and I can be grateful for it. It's truly the power of what if. I think in teaching, at least here in the US, there's like this big movement where it's always the power of yet, like saying, I can't do this. But if you had the word yet, but what I hear you saying, it's also what if, what are the possibilities? And it's beautiful. I just, Had a call with a client last week, and she had an entire prayer that she read me that was so incredibly beautiful, and it was all about what if, and it just, oh, it was, it was an emotional time for me just to see the transformation that had happened in her and the way that the Lord was speaking to her through you. Things like what if. So when it comes to questioning, sometimes I think it can be hard to question ourselves. So do you have any tips or strategies for questioning ourselves? Or is this a case where it's better to have someone else like a coach or a mentor or even our spouse? Question asked, what's your advice? I think 100 percent you can question yourself, but if you aren't really in the habit of it and you're like, I don't even know what better questions to ask. I mean, you can start with the ones we've already mentioned. If you follow any coaches. They will for sure be posting free content, like their posts, they'll do workshops. Like you can, you don't have to necessarily work with a coach. I don't think you can like follow them and you will, they will just be giving you ideas for questions you can ask yourself. And as you say, when you have to actually articulate it, you find out. You just get a lot more clear on what your actual answer is. So I wouldn't just leave it up in your head. Take time to actually write it, write things down, actually journal it out because that will force you to be really clear and some things will come out and you're like, Ooh, that's a surprising, surprising one. Um, and, and then there, there are other things like you could, you can do a discovery call with a coach, like my own process. When I do a discovery call, it's really designed to get you thinking as. your future self. So we ask a lot of questions and often it's the very first time people have like thought about. There's questions and like, Oh, that's a really good question. It just keeps saying that like, Oh, I've never thought about that or whatever. So there's, so there's a number of free ways that you can, you can get question ideas, but then also when you actually work with a coach, I think there is something about that. like having to have somebody like someone else can see your mind and see what's happening for you with a lot more perspective and clarity than you can see it for yourself. So there is, is a big advantage to that. They're also trained in the art of asking questions. so that's helpful. and it's, and I think it's asking myself, like, do I know that could make the changes that I want to make in times faster if I work with a coach, am I okay with it taking longer? If I do it on my own and just know that that's the decision you're making and what's going to be the cost of it taking longer, it definitely will be faster, but you also can do it yourself. And actually when you work with a coach, you're learning the art of doing it for yourself as well. So that then you might work with a coach and then you're like, okay, I have tools in my belt to go and run with this on my own. Absolutely. When I think of you, you talked about free workshops. You ran one. Which has stuck with me, and I see you post this phrase on your Instagram page a lot too, or at Labora. Can you tell us, what does that mean for anyone who doesn't know, and how is it helpful? Um, firstly, we're going to be talking about failure in a little bit, and that was a good example. Not of a failure, it was a very successful. But I really learned, two, two weeks is a long time to run a challenge. That was a two week challenge. But I learned a lot from it. so yeah, I ran a challenge called Laura et Labora. It means, pray and work. It's the Benedictine, motto and our parish priest gave a homily and it really stuck with me and he said, notice how. The word aura is at the end of labora, so prayer kind of appears twice and like the work, the labor part is sandwiched by prayer. And, I was like, that's awesome. That fits nicely with the, these three steps that I often talk about to creating any result, achieving any goal, which are to discern, take action and learn like our brains. They really love to overcomplicate things because then we freeze, we get overwhelmed. We don't do the things that it's. A scary, or involve risk, maybe exposing ourselves, whatever. And so it's helpful because actually it's not complicated. It's actually really simple. Do you just pray, you take action and then you pray again. But learning from the action you just took, so maybe you start with an idea or a desire and you have a robust conversation about it with the Lord, and then you pick something to do. It doesn't even really matter. you don't want to get hung up on what's the right action to take, which is what we do sometimes. You'll find it, you'll figure it out by just doing something and then learning from it. And that was really what the challenge was about, trying to get people to do those three steps every single day, in some, something small. So that's Aura et Labora. And a beautiful example of you just doing an action, not knowing the result, being detached from the result, but just putting yourself out there, I think sometimes. We think that people who have Instagram pages or, have written books that they are exempt from failure from putting themselves out there and having to really just be humble and say, I don't know if this is going to work, but I'm just going to try it still perfectly human. Monica is still perfectly human. She still has all of those emotions and all of those struggles. The difference is through the work that she has done, all of the internal work. She is willing to pray and then take an action and then reflect on it and let in and not let it completely defeat her So I think this is a great segue into failure, which I really want to talk about when this episode comes out I am already seeing These posts go out about making it the best Lent ever and all of these things, you know, people, I think, sometimes can overdo it on Lent. It's like a New Year's resolution, but we're adding in 18, 000 things, and I don't think there's anything wrong with Wanting to be ambitious. I think that sometimes it takes us away from the prayer aspect of really building the relationship with God because we're so focused on trying to do so many things. Um, and I think, and I think, sorry, I'm just gonna. I have to rant about a pet peeve that I have about Lent. The way, the way people think about it, and I think part of that is because people, they abdicate their freedom and responsibility over to Lent. They're like, I can't, I'm not good at sticking to things. And so there's something magical about Lent where it helps me to do things. And so I'm going to save up the things that I want to work on for Lent. Um, because. They, yeah, they just have this self concept that like, I struggle with consistency. I struggle to do new things or whatever it is. And yes, I think there, like, there is truth to it is a time of special graces. It's a special time of the liturgical year, but that also has no bearing on what you are or are not capable of at any other time of year. On literally any other day, so just putting that out there. Yeah, it's like this thought, I want to do, I can't do it for myself, but I can do it for Jesus. And then we try to do it for Jesus, and then we fail. And then we're like, oh my gosh, now I'm just this complete failure. And I'm going to beat myself up because I couldn't even do it for Jesus. Well. No, it didn't. It's not gonna suddenly just happen, especially when we take on 15 things rather than just doing what we're capable of doing. And yeah, it should hurt a little bit. It should stretch us a little bit, but it shouldn't be so daunting that we're gonna fail at it or that it pulls us from Jesus because the whole point is to grow closer to him. So what is your definition of failure? So I think a failure is, any time that you make a hypothesis as to how you going to create a certain result, achieve a certain thing, and then you go out and you test that theory, you try something, and then you don't get the result that you thought you'd get. And I really like thinking about it that way because. It's kind of like, if you think about the failed experiments of a scientist, like that helps them to, to come to the truth, to formulate their theories. And actually it gives them so much information and then you're just making hypotheses as to what's going to work, what's going to get you where you want to go. And then you're willing to take action and finding the things that don't work. It's just part of the process. Then, and it doesn't mean anything about you and what you're capable of or your worth or anything like that. And it's like, truly it is the pathway to success and at school in many ways, my definition was if I get less than 80%, like that's a fail. I always had very high bar for myself, but, one area that I did really understand this was, in. Mathematics, because, I read a book, it was, I read a lot of like how to study books because I was a real nerd. And one of them had a section on how to study maths and science. And in it, there was a section that said like in capitals, I remember it saying treasure your mistakes. And it went through this process of how to do that, where it was like you open, you have open, up to the back of your exercise book. And every time you make a mistake in your homework or a test or exam or whatever, you like write out what you did. And then write the correct thing. And it was really this dissecting of why did I get it wrong? Was it because I just typed in the calculator wrong? Did I just add something together wrong? Did I read my writing wrong or did I not actually understand the concept and which part of the concept did I not understand? And I was like, that is a great idea. So I did that. For the probably the last three years of high school, and it was so helpful and I did, I never did all of my homework because I just, I would do half of them. And I was like, yeah, I feel like I've like figured it out because I would just be checking for what am I getting wrong and, and solving for that. As I went, so. It, it saved me time because I was like, I'm happy to go to do this and get it wrong. And then learn from it. So yeah, your mistakes are they are truly a gold mine for the lessons to be learned to like, there's always going to be things that worked and that didn't work. And so you can use that to help you build the blueprint for success of what does work and to get smarter. maybe some people have heard the expression, there's only winning or learning. And sometimes we think, but I'd prefer to just win right out the gate. But if you, if you just win right out the gate, you miss out on the learning. And actually, if you don't win now, if you win now, then you don't learn anything. You don't, it doesn't help you in future winning, but if you learn now, then you are going to win more later. So the learning is just so valuable. And. If you, learn a lot over time, that really compounds. I think that it's that delayed gratification. If we can just delay the gratification for a little bit so that we are willing to learn and not have the immediate win. Because if we have all the wins early, then we're going to have, Probably a really long period of no wins, because all of the learning is gonna come later. fellow nerd here, so when you said treasure your mistakes, it's taking me back to being in the classroom, and Joe Bullard, Carol Dweck, those are authors that I have studied and just this brain science behind our brain growing more when we make a mistake than when we don't. But again, it's going back to why did we make the mistake? Because that is where the real learning is coming into play. And this is what is going to help launch us forward into, like you said, greater successes. And I would try to always tell my students that, and I think the same is true in coaching, if. If I give you something and you know all the answers, then I'm not doing my job because you're not learning anything and I get that it's hard. I mean, you have to have a balance of, productive struggle. You don't want people to just struggle for the sake of struggling, but the productive struggle is so essential. That's what strengthens us for the mission that God has put us here for. That's why That's OK. Go CBD. We go through cycles of consolation and desolation. It's not all consolation. He doesn't give us wins all of the time, right? We have our crosses to carry. And those are the things that if we are willing to treasure those mistakes, if we are willing to treasure those periods of trial and desolation, then we are going to be strong enough to face, our big moments, whatever it is when it comes. And also all of those little ordinary Everyday hardships that we know from motherhood of, you know, just the struggles of being sick during pregnancy or wanting to play with your toddler or whatever it is, those things that are hard for us as moms were strengthened. And we're able to handle those better and have a better mindset and the situation doesn't change, but we're changed. Yep. And there is going to be some level of discomfort that comes with failure, but also, just to throw out the possibility that, I kind of, I, I've grown a lot in just learning, like learning to love failure. Like it's actually like there, there's some discomfort there, but also it's like exhilarating to have the feeling of I'm just willing to try stuff. I'm just willing to give it a go. I'm willing to feel like there's might some uncomfortable feelings might come up, but it just, it's so freeing. Like if there's no emotion you're unwilling to feel, there's no action you're unwilling to take. And then there's nothing that God can ask of you to do that. You're like, Oh, I don't know, God, you just like go for it. And that's really how you set the world ablaze, I think. Oh, I love that. Because it's so much more fun. Most people do not have that attitude. I absolutely love that. It just makes you fearless and You're more able, I think, to place your trust in God because you're not attached to the outcome. You're able to just say, okay, I'll try this. I'm not afraid. I'm not afraid of that. Yeah, go ahead. And, without making the failure mean anything about you, like that's the thing we're most afraid of. We're going to make it mean something about us, something about what we're capable of, something about our value. People don't like me. Things are going to be like this forever. I'm never going to be able to change. I'm never going to get there. But what if you just, what if you knew that that was all an optional story, that you just didn't have to make failure mean anything about your future? Because literally there's always a first time that we do stuff. Our entire life, we are, we haven't done a thing until we've done it for the first time. it's always a first time before you. succeed and do a new thing, create a new result. So what if, yeah, we just decided that our past had literally no bearing on what was possible in our future. Amen. Especially, especially like you bring in that the Lord's like the power of the resurrection and like he bring can bring new life to anything. So let's talk a little bit about prayer. This is part of my coaching niche and people have a lot of thoughts about Failing in prayer, whether it's, I'm always distracted, I can't do it without listening to music, I just can't sit still, or nothing's happening, or I'm not consistent, I just don't have time. There are all these ways that they can form it in their mind of failing in prayer and so they just don't do it. How do we overcome that? I think, knowing, and it's again, like, what am I going to make? these quote unquote failures mean and I think if you want to define for yourself, what is success? What does success in prayer look like? Like, how will I actually know? Probably if you're telling yourself, I'm not praying hard enough or long enough or good enough, I'm not like, I'm not concentrating well enough. Well, how will you know when is it going to be enough? And, and just getting clear on how you're going to know when, What the bar is that you're setting for yourself and inviting the Lord into that conversation, like, well, what is it that you actually want me to pursue right now? And knowing that like, yes, there is, there is an element of we do have the bar set pretty high. Like St. Paul says that we are to pray constantly thanks in all circumstances. So you know, that's a pretty high bar, but also like we're allowed to be human, the Lord knows that we're human. He knows that we're. That we're little. And I was talking to a client about this the other day. She, she always felt like she wasn't giving her best. Like it was, it was never like the very best that she could give, it was never good enough. But then I asked her like, what if this is your best? What if that just is how little you are, how weak you are? And what if that's okay? And God just loves us in our littleness. Like St. Therese of Lisieux talks about that so much, just how small she is. And can you accept. That level of weakness and smallness, that, that is who you are, like that takes great humility and that we know that humility and trust, like those are bedrocks to our foundation with God. So, failures. It's just an opportunity to grow, grow in humility. Number one. And, and the enemy's goal is always going to be to discourage, discourage us and make us feel ashamed. And when we feel ashamed. And discourage, we're going to be not motivated to pray. And we also like shame causes us to hide our instinct is to want to hide and withdraw. So we withdraw from God. even like interiorly, like we're not going to be able to be as receptive and open to hearing God's voice. And so that interrupts that communion and intimacy with God, but God's goals. That's the enemy's goal to foster discouragement and shame. God's goal is for us to, to, to, to not lose our peace. over anything, even coming face to face with how not great we are compared to how great we thought we were or what we think we should be capable of. And to, and that allows us to just abide in him, which is gonna, that's going to be so much more conducive to, to prayer, to, to, to, to having that, that interior peace of heart, but also to. Making the time to sit down and have a special time of prayer. And, and I think, yeah, just accepting that the failure is the pathway. I really love this expression to, to fail and not learn is the same as to have done nothing. Mm hmm. Like if you fail at prayer and you don't learn from what, whatever that looks like, whether you just don't do it for that day or you don't do it for as long or you're distracted or, whatever the case, if you don't learn from that, it's, you would have achieved the same amount of learning to help you in tomorrow as to if you had done nothing. So, um. That's worth bearing in mind, I think. So if I had to break it down into, steps, like how we would, how to learn from our failures, it would be to have, just treat yourself with so much kindness, compassion, and curiosity. And one way that I'd like to think about this is there's a few like scripture filters that I like to think of. So for example. Love is patient. Love is kind. I know I can't remember the whole thing, but it's, love keeps no record of wrongs. Hope bears all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Like, do you, is the way that you're talking to yourself about this? Does it, is it, does it match up with that? are you speaking to yourself with love and kindness and patience? You can think about in terms of the fruits of the spirit, so peace, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, gentleness, like, are you speaking to yourself in that way? And that is just going to allow you to, to not make the failure mean anything terrible about you. Because when you start making it mean terrible things about you, we don't learn. We're not in a headspace to be curious. And to learn, and then if I had to give three questions to actually like, how do I learn? Cool. I want to learn from my mistakes. How do I do that? So you get yourself into that headspace first. And then I would ask three questions and make it a prayer, Lord, what are we celebrating here? What is there to celebrate and why? There's always something. Don't let your, don't let your brain tell you that you haven't done anything. Even if it's like you missed prayer for the day. It's like maybe you wanna celebrate. I am. I'm evaluating, like I'm open to learning from this. I'm growing in humility right now. I'm praying right now because I'm like deciding I'm gonna learn from not following through earlier in the day. I'm one step closer to a deeper prayer life. There's always something to celebrate. Then Lord, what didn't work here and why? And then the third question is Lord, what lessons are we taking with us for tomorrow? Or you could do it at the end of, if you're doing it each day, it would be tomorrow, could be for next week, or you could do it at any time of day. It could be a lesson for the rest of the day, whatever the timeframe. Yeah, I love those. And I love that you keep bringing it back to don't let this mean something about you, don't let this tear you down that you can't do something or you're not meant for this because we are all called to be saints and just really remaining attached from the results. I think sometimes, and I'm guilty of this, I just had a recent Breakdown end of the year of like, Lord, I've been praying for this and praying for this. And I am, I'm not seeing any fruits, I'm not seeing any fruits right now and I feel so defeated. So just, it's our responsibility to not lose our peace and go back to the Lord and it's okay to share. I also want to say it's okay to share and be vulnerable and we're supposed to. I found myself recently totally failing at doing my nightly examen because I. I didn't want to focus on my failure and all of the things that I was feeling. I did not want to go to the Lord and say I was angry or frustrated. And so I just avoided it. And then when I did, it was very healing and beautiful, but it took me a few days to actually sit there and not just jump into vocal prayer, but to sit and be really honest. And tell the Lord exactly what it was that I was feeling and admit to myself that that's what I was feeling. That's a hard part too. So going back to that question of what are we celebrating here? And I was celebrating that even though I had been avoiding it for days, I was able to sit and that the Lord invited me back again and again. And he's not angry with me that I wasn't there. he's always welcoming. And even the fact that there's something to learn from, yeah, there's like, I'm learning from why was I avoiding it? And now I have more data for maybe next time. Maybe I'll still avoid it in the future, but maybe I'll catch it quicker. Yes. I like that. And quicker and quicker and quicker. What advice can you give women who are really hard on themselves? So it could be hard on themselves in terms of showing up for prayer or just in terms of self care and knowing when it's time to pull back a little bit and when to rest. So I think that, those are kind of separating self care and self talk, but I think your self talk is the most fundamental kind of. Self care that you can do. I have a five day like email training so you can sign up for that. If you want to, it delves into this deeply, but, how do you, how you talk to yourself all day long? influences how you feel, how you experience your life and what you choose to do, how you choose to, like the actions that you choose to do to take care of yourself, which is what we normally focus on. Like having baths and having quiet time and like doing the things. But, but yeah, you don't have to, what if self care, it doesn't have to be relegated to this, one hour of the day or however much time you give yourself, it's an all day long practice, and self care is. something that I've really been forced to learn, I think. Um, thank you, Lord. Even though it came through a lot of hardship. So I went through a season of postnatal anxiety a number of years ago where we moved house, yeah, we moved from the city away from family and I literally had no time to myself. I wasn't, Just was doing nothing to take care of myself. We just, we didn't have the supports that we'd had. Routines were all completely out of whack. And it, after doing that for a month, it really started to show. And I spiraled very quickly into a very bad, very bad season of mental health. So. that sort of kicked me into learning more starting to become more interested in mindset and what I was thinking and trying to fill my mind with scripture and do implement things to take care of myself, give myself time away from the kids. Things like that. And, recently, um, in all of my pregnancies, I've struggled with sickness and. pelvic pain, which impacts my ability to walk around the house. But this time I also have prolapse. So if you've experienced any of those things, prolapse or pelvic pain, you know, in and of themselves, they're a big thing, but this is the first pregnancy where I've had both of those. And it feels like a lot of like extra mental stuff. There's just things that I have to do to manage them. And so I feel very limited in a lot of ways. And so that's been really helping me. Learn to accept my limitations and choose joy and gratitude and not, resist. Like I had to re I've for months now, I've been having like a lie down after lunch every single day. And for a while, and sometimes I still fall into it, but I would really resist it and be like, I wish I didn't have to do this. It's so unfair. cause I just want to be working away at my to do list and getting things done and being productive. And I've had to really learn how to just go, well, but this is like, in order to be able to show up and to last the distance in this pregnancy, this is something that, I don't like to say I have to do, but if I choose to not do this, I never like to say I have to do, if I choose to not do this, I don't like what the consequences will be. So I am choosing to do it. Can I be grateful that I am choosing to do this? Can I be grateful? A lot of people that it's like, Oh, poor you, you have to lie down for half an hour and have all these naps. Like, that's so terrible. Like, what if I, if I'm going to do it, why don't I just enjoy the fact that I'm doing it? So, how you talk to yourself. And so if you struggle with, either with the way that you talk to yourself or, not making time to, to take care of yourself, both of those, like fundamentally, it's not, a time issue. It's really, it's a self concept, self worth issue. And so it's tied to like, do I believe that? I am a priority, that I'm important, that I'm an irreplaceable asset, that I have an irreplaceable contribution to make to the world, and that if I don't pour into myself, I'm not going to be able to pour into others and into the world and give in the way that I'm called to, so yeah, that, that is going to be where your work is. As women, we don't always have the option to go take a nap or separate ourselves from our circumstances, but we do always have the choice to have better self talk, and I'm so happy that you brought that up. I've noticed that in coaching calls, especially when working with someone new, you know, we'll talk about our thoughts and where these thoughts are leading and what's the other evidence, right? When we send our mind on that mission, what's the other evidence? What are the other thoughts that we could choose to believe? And sometimes people have a really hard time coming up with a new thought because the thought is I'm a victim to my circumstances, but I'm not a victim. if you just change your thought to, I'm not a victim. I can choose joy. It's not a time issue. What if I just enjoyed this? Or I can just enjoy this. That phrase itself, I can just enjoy taking a nap. It might not be my first choice, but I can enjoy it. What other, do you have any other short, one line thoughts that you try to like pull into your self talk throughout the day? I'm an excellent problem solver. I can figure out anything. Even if there's a lot of failure along the way, like, but that is the path, as we've talked abOut. lately I've been liking, when I'm trying to change something, this is just, like, that is no longer who I am, this is who I'm choosing to be now. I'm choosing a new way. And, just the idea of my, My circumstances, my emotions, so specifically with anger, this has been coming up, anger doesn't create my results. I do. I'm the one who, by what I choose to think and feel and do, I create my results and co create with God as I cooperate with grace and the life circumstances that he gives me. And in fact, when you are thinking in more of this way, like you mentioned, it's not always possible maybe to take a nap. And in some cases, it's not, but there, maybe there are some people listening who they, they might you might think that it's not possible, but actually it could be. So for example, like My kids, I implemented, I was like, I'm when they stop having a nap, we're implementing quiet time. I'm not letting go of this afternoon time. And so I know that a lot of people actually don't do this and at which I couldn't believe, But they, it's like, Oh, my kid, my kid doesn't nap anymore. And so now I don't have this afternoon time. And it's like, I just let my kids behavior dictate what I'm doing. Versus believing I can teach my kids to play quietly, even for an hour, my kids actually play for two hours normally and not come and interrupt me so that I can have some downtime. I can have a nap if that's what I need to do. And I'm not saying that this is what everybody needs to do is just as an example of I could have chosen to think this is just happening to me and now I don't have certain options available to me. But what if it is possible? What if I quit? What can I control? That just takes you into a much different place. And you can explore with the Lord, like, Lord, what do you want me to do? What do you want me to implement? How do you want me to respond to these circumstances? So you may be in certain circumstances now, but what if you had so much more power to influence? Control those than you thought. Such a good example. I think that's one that a lot of us can relate to, especially with kids of thinking that, oh, my kid acts this way. Like maybe you could do that with your kids, but I can't do that with my kids. Rather than just taking ownership of, you know what, this could be possible. It might look a little bit different, but I could figure this out. We could find a way. It might take a while. it took a long time. I will just say that but so worth it. It's worth the work, right? Yep. Okay, when we're in that place where we're just really feeling unmotivated, we have fallen prey to the thoughts about failure of making it about us, that I can't do this, I don't know how to do this, this isn't for me, one that I've heard is if this is for me then why is this so hard? It must not be for me, right? How do we motivate ourselves to just keep showing up? So I think, I think we do often feel like, I feel like that we, it's like, Oh, I've fallen prey to these thoughts about failure. They've come back. I haven't succeeded in driving them away and now they're there and now they have to rule me. But what if that's not the case? What if you just expect those thoughts are going to come up? They still come up for me as much as I've talked to all this stuff about like loving failure, but the temptation, the urge to go down the track of, Oh, I shouldn't keep doing this. This is hard. I should give up we still have a fallen human brain, no matter what, which wants to do everything it can to seek pleasure, avoid pain, stay in comfort, avoid risk, avoid exposure, avoid taking effort that we don't get the payoff for all of that. Um, and also an enemy that wants us to play it small and stay on the couch. And so what yeah, those like for sure, you're not going to listen to this podcast and then. It's going to be all solved for sure. Those thoughts are going to keep coming up and it's just about noticing them and saying, Oh, yep, there, of course my brain is offering me this, but I can choose to go in a different direction. I can choose to think something else and the thought can be there, but it doesn't have to be in the driver's seat. and, and if that feels difficult, then, like maybe you feel really attached to the thought and maybe it feels really true. Then it's learning that questioning process. Is it true? Like a hundred percent of the time, is this a universal truth? And I really liked the idea of, could the opposite be true? And even if it's only 1 percent true, even if I can only find, for example, maybe you're like, I feel like I'm not a prayerful person, like I'm just failing at prayer and I'm, you have this self concept that you're not prayerful or not prayerful enough. Try on the idea I am prayerful, how, can I find even 1 percent of evidence for that, like how could that be true? We, get very into like this black or white thinking, like it has to be either 100 percent or maybe 80 percent before I can give myself permission to think it. But what if I am prayerful. I am prayerful in some situations. Sometimes I pray. I go to mass or whatever it is, like finding those little things and. And saying, so, I'm prayerful in these ways. And so now I'm just, I'm just learning to do it more. Just learning to do it 1 percent more each day, just create more, like a little bit more evidence and just keep compounding that. I find that really helpful. And also just to remember that motivation is, an emotion and our thoughts are what create our emotions. And so just finding what are the thoughts that motivate me? And learning like you can do the motivation code assessment. If you're interested in all that stuff, you can learn about your unique motivators and learn how to tap into those, more in your, day to day life or in relation to prayer, but yeah, we, like I, we often think of motivation as something that just happens to us. Like we just lose motivation. We start off the new year and then we lose motivation and like, well, now I can't do anything. no, you can create it on purpose and I, with my, this, this has been my number one goal working on this anger thing. So, um, it's one thing that I struggle, have struggled with a little bit with it is like, it's, it can feel kind of heavy sometimes. Like there's maybe some shame around. And I shouldn't lose control of my anger. and it's just, you know, doesn't sound like the most fun goal. at first, but I've been really trying to work on how could it be fun? How can we be playful with this? How is this an amazing goal? What are all of the good things that are on the other side of it? But that's taken, I've had to work at that every single day. And there's been a couple, a few weeks in, it was like, Oh, it's not as novel anymore. I'm feeling a bit blur about it. I kind of want to do something different now. Tired of thinking about this every day, just like coming face to face with that and knowing, but I can choose. I can choose to find why this is motivating to me. I can choose to focus on why this is so important, what's amazing about it, what's exciting about it, and just tap back into how can I make this just fun today. So yeah, I think just knowing motivation is, it's something that you can create on demand. Oh, yes, we can create it. And it's so great to know, the more that we know about ourselves, the more that we understand ourselves, that gets easier and easier. And I just. My mind is going straight back to my students in the classroom saying, Well, I'm just not a math person. My parents aren't math people. They can't do math either. So, therefore, I can't do math, right? That was their reasoning. It's like, okay, well, what does a math person look like? Well, they don't miss questions on their tests. Really? Okay, then I guess I'm not a math person, because I've missed questions before. You know, like, it's just, going into those questions, well, they're fast. Okay, some of the, the greatest mathematicians of all time were really, really slow at doing math, right? Or they missed basic, actually, there's a really famous mathematician, he was giving a talk, and he mixed up a basic arithmetic question, and people were giving him such a hard time, but he's brilliant, and had solved all these complex things, but because he had made this little mistake, it goes back to what are we making that mean about him because of the one mistake versus let's look at all of this other evidence that is actually true here. Makes me think of, um, sorry, the, um, NASA, I, I don't remember exactly, but they, they had some rocket that failed. Or a satellite or something. It failed to go to where, where it was supposed to go, cost billions of dollars because someone didn't convert the units of like American units to metric, like properly at some point. And that just cracks me up whenever I think about that. Like these people are geniuses, but, um, yes. and also just a funny. Like nerd story, we, my husband is teaching, he's a science teacher, but he is teaching some high level maths this year for the first time. And he, didn't do this level of maths in high school. And he's also forgotten a lot, of what he did. So we've been like working through, some things and, I've been, helping him out. So we had like a maths date night. And we just felt like. Because I was like teasing him about things that he didn't know or mistakes he was making and we just like were crying with laughter. It was the most we'd laughed in a long time and we were just like, we're doing maths and we're laughing so much. We're just so nerdy right now. So yeah, that was funny. The beauty of owning who you are though. I love it. Okay. I have a couple of fun questions. We're going to keep it short because I know we're running low on time. You. Are in Australia, but you work with people in the U. S. And for someone like me, who organization. I'm not bad at organization. That's a thought, but just the scheduling and maintaining schedules and not forgetting things and the time conversions. I mean, I struggle with free time zones. What tips can you give people like me or anyone else who's listening to how do you keep up with managing all of these schedules? If I had to keep it short and sweet, I think two things. It's just helpful to get it on paper and out of your head. But also when you're planning, when you're creating to do lists, I think a useful question to ask yourself is would I give this to do list or this schedule to a dear friend or like someone that I really love? Would I give them this like 50 item long to do list that is just setting them up to feel like they get to the end of the day and feel like they didn't do everything and to feel like a failure? Or would you give them something very manageable? Something that feels gentle, something that feels there's like space in the day, like everything that goes on your schedule, your calendar, you choose all of it, even if it's work, even if it feels like it's like, oh no, but I have this commitment and I have to be here and I have to take kids there. You choose all of that. Maybe you really love your reasons for why you choose to work or why you choose to send your kids to whatever. But you still, I think there's something really powerful about knowing I do get to decide. And just, yeah, taking back that agency and power and ownership. So thinking about how could I, how can I filter my decisions about my to do list or my schedule through. Kindness and love towards myself. But also not just scheduling nothing. We also want to grow and be challenged and do the things that God wants us to do. Absolutely. Okay. So this one is kind of funny. I know I've joked with people over on Instagram about this, about. Buying all the books and how many we have on our shelves that we haven't actually read, so I just got a huge box of used books, and then I, what's even funnier is I get them and then I realize how large they are and how many pages and think, okay, that one's gonna take me a long time to get to, so as a fellow book lover, if you had to choose a book that every woman should read, or at least order and have on their shelf, just in case, what would it be? Well, as you, you could see the big bookshelf behind me, I was like, Oh, this is a really hard question. So what, what I ended up going with was interior freedom by father Jacques Philippe. I mean, all of his books are amazing. But for me, that was one of the ones that when I reread it again soon after I discovered coaching and I was like, Oh. The first time I read this, I was like, yeah, sounds good, sounds good, sounds good, but didn't know how to actually like implement it. And then I felt like when I read it again, I was like, Oh, I feel like I have the tools to actually make this happen to actually like I've got the practical tools and the skills and the awareness of my interior life to actually cultivate all this interior freedom that he's talking about now. So that, that book is just. It's all about being at peace no matter what the circumstances and focusing on what you can control and surrendering I have that one on my shelf. Good choice. Good choice. And I have read it. Okay. So at the end of every interview, I always like to ask the guest to either share a scripture verse that is Really impactful for them that they would like to share with everyone else or a prayer tip So a prayer tip that I often share is that I go to adoration in the middle of the night Because as a mom with a busy schedule, I always felt guilty Taking away more time from my kids and my family and so when I saw that there was also a need for someone to fill these hours because no one ever wants to sign up for them I Tried it I thought I was going to epically fail at it and quit, but I didn't. I found that I really loved it because my mind is not reeling with all of the other things about the day because it's the middle of the night. I don't feel guilty about missing out on time with my kids. It is quiet. And I found that Even though I'm a little bit tired the next day, it is my most peaceful day of the week. It's beautiful. Um, I think for me, journaling has just been such a game changer, especially in really busy seasons. I remember when I think I was pregnant with my second and I had my first and just everything felt really hard and I was like trying to feed the baby and have my breakfast at the same time. But I was like, this is a time when they're in the high chair and I'm sitting at the table. And so they're not going anywhere. And I can, if I can like write down. My prayer, then I know that I'm going to be concentrating and I know I'm going to have breakfast every day. And so I know I'm going to get my prayer done in the morning. And so that was really, really helpful. Just helped me. It helped me to focus. And then since discovering coaching as well, it has helped just so much in growing my awareness of what I am thinking throughout the whole day by having that discipline of. Capturing my thoughts, capturing what we're thinking, that's so beautiful, and I I love that you also are habit stacking your prayer. So you said earlier, the ultimate goal is to pray without ceasing. The only way we are able to do that is to start tying it into the things that we are already doing. So when you habit stack it, you tie it with eating breakfast, which is something you're already going to do every single day. It's just another way that we can implement prayer. And, also another way that we can look at prayer because Everyone who listens to this podcast knows I'm a huge proponent of mental prayer in the morning, but we can't have mental prayer time all day, every day, because we have to interact with other people and we have obligations and we have things to do. But if we can pray in a different way while we are doing something else, that's how we get to lifting our heart and mind to God all of the time. So that's really beautiful. And journaling, is that when you get Um, like when, when your thoughts are kind of just moving around in your head, it's easy to just like slip from one thing to another without actually like capturing and focusing on specific things. But when you like journal it out, I just find it, I'm able to go so much deeper with the Lord and go, Oh, that was interesting that that came out. And just have, have a conversation with him about that and take it deeper. And just, yeah, my interior life has just been so enriched and deepened by. The power of writing, writing it down. I think that everyone's interior life can be enriched by going back through the questions that you have shared with us today. This has been so helpful. I have an entire page full of notes of all of these questions. Some of my favorites, what I give the schedule to a loved one. What if this is your best? Can you accept your smallness? The one that you talked about, yourself as a saint in heaven, if you were to look back on this moment. What would you say to yourself and also all of the what if questions? I think that these are all so incredibly powerful and Just a reminder to everyone listening to this to separate yourself from the results. It doesn't mean anything about you if things don't go the way that you expected or had hoped. So I just want to say thank you so much. This has been so beautiful. Before we press end here and stop recording, where can everyone find you? You post some really great things on Instagram if you want to share your Instagram handle and then also I want to know where we can find your Sure. My Instagram is at Monica Elias coaching, and through there, you can sign up for my self care the Catholic way. Five day training, get on my email list. If you're on my email list, you'll be also doing, um, I'm doing in February, a five fails challenge. So all about failure. So that's going to be, if that's something you struggle with, that will be, I think, really helpful. I'm excited for that. You can. Book a discovery call and we can walk through different areas of your life and just think about like what direction you wanna go in. And the book is www.sacredwoundsbook.com. You can sign up for the wait list or you'll be able to order it, I guess by then. Beautiful. Thank you so much. You are such a gift and I look forward to many more conversations with you as we both progress in this journey of helping other women. Thanks so much, Carly. This was just, yeah, such a joy. Friends. I hope you have enjoyed this as much as I have. If you love great questions, I want to encourage you to go to my website right now. www.kyliemheine.com and download. My daily examine for every temperament guide. It is. Packed full of questions that you can ask yourself at the end of each day. To continue to grow in holiness. It is the perfect. Tool to have in your belt as you head into lent this year. Don't wait, go check it out. Beautiful souls, thank you again for journeying with me. If you have been blessed by this episode, it would mean the world to me if you would leave a review. Be sure to screenshot it, share it on your social media stories, and don't forget to tag me on Instagram or Facebook at Kylie M. Hine. Stay persistent in prayer, protect your peace, and as always, share the light of Christ with everyone around you.