Denise Micelli - Moving From Self-Doubt to Self-Love

If you’re a woman, you probably know the drill. You’re all set to have some ‘me’ time. Then the phone rings. You’re husband needs you to take a suit to the dry cleaners right now for an important meeting. Your neighbor asks you for a favor. Your child tells you for the first time that it’s your week to do snacks for the soccer team.

         Doing any of these things  by themselves isn’t an issue. But when your pattern is saying yes when you really want to say no, you may be hiding your true identity from yourself and from others. 

         How to solve this and learn how to put your priorities in the proper perspective is the theme of my conversation with Empathic Guide and Energy Healer Denise Micelli. In our thought-provoking talk, Denise reveals:

·      Where feelings of fraud and inadequacy really originate

·      Why people pleasing can lead to resentment

·      How to get rid of self-doubt

·      The importance of setting boundaries and why that’s often so difficult

·      It’s okay to be imperfect

·      Practical tips on ways to prioritize your needs

Denise’s insights and practical advice are sure to inspire you to take actionable steps toward embracing your true self. Don’t miss this empowering episode of Dream Power Radio.

         Denise Miceli is an inspiring, empathic guide and mentor who creates space for women ready for personal growth and change. The core of this work is to guide women to what is possible when they align their external world with their internal desires in work and life. 

She is known for her talent in energy healing, intuitive hot-seat coaching, and teaching new and powerful ways of accessing authenticity. She guides women through small group transformational healing with her exclusive 12-week small group coaching journey to Elevate 40+, Reinvent, Rediscover, and Rise. 

Denise feels called to share her strategies and methods of self-awareness through a melding of conscious and subconscious tools, meditation, breathwork, and body-mind release for continual self-reflection and growth. She holds a supportive space and freedom to awaken their infinite potential. 

She teaches the power we have within ourselves to change our thought patterns, which is well documented in neuroscience research. Many do not realize they have this powerful ability within themselves. The best part is that it is easy and fast when you commit to the change you want to see! Website: https://rockyourblocks.com/

Transcript

Announcer 00:00:04  This is Dream Power Radio, the place where your dreams turn into reality. Here is your host, Debbie Spector. Weisman.

Debbie Spector Weisman 00:00:13  Hello, hello, hello and welcome to Dream Power Radio under host Certified Dream-Life Coach Debbie Spector Weisman. This is the place where we talk about dreams, both daytime and nighttime dreams, and how you can use them to make the internal shift to a life you love and rediscover the truth of who you really are. Many years ago, long before I embraced Dreamwork, I was a working writer. I wrote a number of young adult romance novels at a time when the genre was very popular. My books sold well. It was a fun time for me. Very often when a new book would come out, I'd go to my local bookstore, make sure it was prominently displayed on the shelf so as many people as possible strolling the aisles would see it. All of this made me happy on the surface. But there's a big part of me that actually felt like I was a fraud.

Debbie Spector Weisman 00:01:07  I got my first book contracts, through contacts I had in the publishing industry, where I'd spent many years working as an editor, instead of my believing it was the universe, recognizing my talents and rewarding me for my hard work. I felt undeserving and that my success came only through luck, because I was in the right place at the right time. I was always looking over my shoulder, believing that any day someone would show up and confirm my feelings and grab me as someone who would never be good enough. So I downplayed my so-called success and, as a result, never really, truly experienced the rush of confidence and self-esteem I should have had at the time. I’ve come a long way since then. Today I'm comfortable in my skin and more self-accepting of who I am, both the good and the bad. I don't let the beliefs of others get in my way as I now know my true self-worth. Unfortunately, there are too many women out there who don't feel in alignment with their lives. They may feel they have to be perfect all the time in order to be accepted or hide their own true beliefs by being people pleasers and kowtowing to beliefs and wants of others.

Debbie Spector Weisman 00:02:22  They don't have to live like this, of course, and thankfully, there are methods to learn how to better accept and embrace our core identities. One way is to explore and identify the subconscious beliefs that control our behaviors. We're going to discuss this with my guest, empathic guide and energy healer Denise Micelli, through her Transformational Healing Program, Rock Your Blocks, Denise teaches how to change our hidden thought patterns so we can awaken to our infinite potential. Welcome to Dream Power Radio, Denise.

Denise Micelli 00:02:56  Thank you so much. I'm so happy to be here.

Debbie Spector Weisman 00:02:59  Oh, it is my pleasure. Well, Denise, I want to talk about the idea of self-doubt. So many women, many talented and smart women, don't seem to be able to achieve what they want because of the self-deprecating stories they tell themselves. Where does this come from? A why is it so much doubt out there?

Denise Micelli 00:03:20  You know what I find through all of the different methodologies that I've learned and been trained in, is that it really typically goes back to experiences we had as children, where when you think about 0 to 7, for example, we are in a state of we're happy about everything.

Denise Micelli 00:03:41  We're looking for that love in every situation, that joy in every situation. And we don't often find that unconditional response back. And so parents are trying to be parents, right. And it's no judgment against parents, but sometimes they don't see the value of what we're doing. Right. Or they're like, oh, you're making such a mess. Or you're always doing this and that and being judged somehow and not really as a child, feeling seen for who we really are, what our strengths really are. So a lot of times what we do is we internalize that judgment made on us. And I call it like the inner judge because that voice becomes a part of our neurology, it becomes a part of our response. And so we can respond to situations with that inner critic like you tell in your story that you were just like feeling an imposter. So part of the work is understanding that it is not about blame, it is not about shame or guilt or anything like that, but it's about understanding that this happens to many of us in childhood, and it doesn't have to be a result of massive trauma.

Denise Micelli 00:04:59  It could just be that you were the black sheep of the family, or you were the one that really was different in some way and was kind of encouraged to be a different way. And so now we have developed and taken on that voice as adults, and it can be a critical voice, a very judgmental voice, and one that tells us what we should feel. Like you said, this is just luck. This is not really who you are. Meanwhile, probably as a child, you were very creative in some way, and you maybe were a storyteller as far back as that time. And maybe it wasn't that specific thing, but somehow you did not feel accepted for who you were at that time and that stuck with you. And then, of course, things can happen past age seven, but the ones from in that period are so our brains are in development. And so if we have this sense of not being okay with who we really are, then what do we do? As women particularly we try to please, we're like, okay, I can be like this.

Denise Micelli 00:06:07  I can do it like my sister. I can be more like my brother. Whatever it is, if we start to learn to take on behaviors that are more acceptable and we don't understand until we look at this from decades later and we say, oh, actually, I really want to be working more in nature, or I really want to be doing more writing storytelling. But it was something that I was kind of put on the shelf because it didn't seem like it was okay, and I wanted that love. I wanted that unconditional love and approval. So that's really kind of the root of it. Whether you go into a subconscious healing or even do a conscious session where you identify what are the main saboteur kind of energies that you're feeling, And  typically where we start is like, what is it? Do you feel judged? Do you feel a bit of a victim because maybe you were? Do you feel like a rescuer? So all of those like archetypal, they are alive in us.

Denise Micelli 00:07:10  And unless we actually face them and start to bring in some way to soothe them, we're never going to be rid of them. It's our past, right? But be able to soothe them enough to realize there is that younger, sweet, innocent, heartfelt you underneath all of it. And we want to just bring that out so you can have that richness and that joy that you felt as a child bringing that back, especially at this time in our lives. For women who are 40s, 50s and up is it's like this actually, by society's standards, we become invisible. But it is one of the most powerful times of our lives. We've learned so much. We want to lift others up, many of us. And so we don't want to be blocked by these patterns.

Debbie Spector Weisman 00:08:00  Absolutely. And it's funny because thinking about that when I went through my life to uncover these patterns that happened when I was growing up…it wasn't one single thing, and it wasn't like something that was a horrible thing.

Debbie Spector Weisman 00:08:19  But it felt horrible to me because of the way it happened. And there's even one instance I remembered where my mother bought me an ice cream cone, and we came out of the restaurant and the cone fell and I lost it, and I didn't get another one. So I felt I was being punished because it fell, and it was a terrible thing. And so that got into the whole, well, I didn't deserve another. I didn't deserve to have it.

Denise Micelli 00:08:50  You messed up and now you're getting a punishment. Yeah. So we internalize those things and like you said, it's at most of the time most of the women that I've worked with, it is not severe trauma. And occasionally that will come up as a memory. But most of the time it is little things like that that made us feel judged, made us feel different, made us feel like we had to do better. We have to try harder. And it's amazing how that sticks with you. And then sometimes it gets reinforced as we get a little older.

Denise Micelli 00:09:24  We're in school and we have that teacher that maybe shames us or judges us. It can come from other family members or externally. And then it's like we don't realize until later that we are maybe hypersensitive to anyone evaluating us because we felt so harshly judged. And I'm going to tell you, out of all of those saboteur energies, the judge is the killer. Because a lot of times if you go back in your family history, you will find that maybe your mother had a super judgmental father. And so this is a generational pattern, and it is not easy to break. And so but at least acknowledging that, you can feel that compassion for that parent that did that to you, because maybe they hadn't even harsher because as you go back in the generations, it was pretty much like a lot of my clients will say, I was told to be seen and not heard. Period. Don't bother me with anything. And so there is a sense of like, I have to be invisible.

Denise Micelli 00:10:29  So when we go back down the line, when I've actually done some of that work as well, where, wow, I worked with an expert who helped me to look back into the family line on one side, and it was like many, many generations before there were healthy connections. And I can feel that in me, with the amount that I had to do to realize and also to forgive, because if we hold on to things that we felt wronged us or kind of created these saboteurs in us, then where are we then? Then we're just kind of angry, resentful, but we've got to be able to acknowledge it, forgive it, and have understanding that everyone's at a different place with this work. And that's why it's so powerful to just kind of crack open the door, have somebody that's been there like you, like me, we've been there, and we want to help other women to see that you can rise above this.

Debbie Spector Weisman 00:11:29  Right. And it's a shame that there aren't any courses on how to parent, because then we would see these things way before they could be causing any kind of horror effect to our children.

Debbie Spector Weisman 00:11:45  We just don't know. We're never taught this, and what we were taught was what we got from our parents. You're exactly right. You know, okay, if you want our children to listen to us. So we do the things to do that. And whatever we say to make that happen is cutting off their creativity or their understanding.

Denise Micelli 00:12:06  Yeah. I have an interview coming up that's like a mom's podcast. Because the thing is, we need to teach this to younger generations as well, because they're struggling. You know, parenting has become more and more difficult because now we've got the technology issues. We've got all of these things that kids engage with that kind of create this more disconnection. Right. When we didn't have all of that, it was pretty simple. It was like, you're growing up. You're coming home at this time. And TV was just kind of beginning. So I feel like I get that parents want to they really want to do better than what they experienced as a child.

Denise Micelli 00:12:45  And so, again, are we really allowing kids to be who they really are? And so yeah, it is definitely a time of great change to where I think people want to know, how can I be a better parent? How can I be a better partner? How can they be a better entrepreneur and not have these energies come up? And so that's really the focus of what I do, is help people develop sort of daily practices that can help them to, once they know these things and once they know they have these energies within them. The saboteur type of energy, shame, guilt, fear that come with it, how they can soothe themselves and to bring that energy down and wake up the wisdom that really is sitting there waiting to be accessed.

Debbie Spector Weisman 00:13:38  We have to take a short break. Now we're speaking about how to embrace our core identities with Denise Miceli, and we'll be right back. 

Announcer 00:14:17  Welcome back to Dream Power Radio with your host, Debbie Spector Weisman.

Debbie Spector Weisman 00:14:26  Welcome back to Dream Power Radio. I'm your host, Debbie Spector Weisman, and we're talking with Denise Micelli about the identities and behaviors that hold us back from being our true selves. Well, Denise, one of those ways that those nagging feelings of not being good enough shows up is in the area of people pleasing. It sounds like it's a really good thing, you know, getting along with everybody, making the effort to really get along with everybody all the time. But it actually can be self-limiting in the end. Could you speak a bit about how that works?

Denise Micelli 00:15:00  Absolutely. I mean to all of these parts of us, we call it people pleasing and they all come from a place of good.

Denise Micelli 00:15:09  We all want to be that giving, loving person. The problem is when we overuse it, just like anything that we overdo, right? It becomes more of a weakness than a strength. So what happens is that we start to show up as this person who's always saying yes. And on the surface, we think that if we just keep saying yes to our loved ones, our friends, whoever is asking for a favor or assistance, that we will get this little dopamine hit if you will like, we'll get their appreciation, we'll get their love, we'll get something back. And the danger of that is that first of all, a lot of times we're going against what we really want to do. Number one. So now we've lost that authentic self. Instead of saying, oh, I'm not sure if I could do that, let me check and I'll get back to you. Maybe you don't feel comfortable just saying no right up front. Because if we've been doing these behaviors, a lot of us have been doing it for a long time.

Denise Micelli 00:16:07  So maybe you just say, let me check. That's a way to do it. But when we say yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, we think that it's going to give us that approval, that being held in some high esteem. And what happens is people just get used to the yes. But you also don't really show them who you really are. Maybe you have a priority right now that you're trying to finish a book, or do you have this little pet project that you want to get done and you keep saying yes to them, and now you feel bad because you're not being authentic with them. They don't know what it is you're really trying to do. And so your pleaser ways actually kind of prevent you from being who you really are. Making connections with people feel a little bit false, and maybe people find it hard in the extreme level. They might find it hard to get close to you because they're not really sure they're always expecting this yes, yes, yes and everything. I'll make everything better. And they're like, what's really going on here? Because they're really part of them is like, how can this person always be giving?

Denise Micelli 00:16:59  And if you think of it in terms of, let's say, if you have children, if you're always telling them what they want to hear, are they really going to learn the lesson so we can actually take away from being able to give really good feedback to a child, even an adult child. As they get older, they don't necessarily get easier. And so you might be holding back on giving them valuable feedback because you don't want to hurt their feelings. But meanwhile your sugarcoating things is not helping them grow. So it actually really impacts both sides of the relationship and what you will hear from a lot of people who have this type of people pleaser, saboteur is that they have a hard time taking care of themselves. They spread themselves way too thin and then they get resentful. So now they're not only feeling disconnected from the people that they want to be closest to, but they have this underlying resentment that's kind of brewing.

Denise Micelli 00:18:07  And so they might react some way to someone that they really love because they're holding that resentment. And so it really is a double-edged sword. And that is often a lot of times women in midlife, we've got a lot of resentments because we've been overdoing for too long. And so that's part of this work is to really kind of figure out where it came from. Many of us had parents, mothers or grandmothers and so forth going back that did this all the time, and it just was the way that you were. But if we think back to even those relationships, we can probably remember little things that were said, little resentments that were leaking out here and there, even though at the time we didn't know it. But if we look back, we can say this is not about blame or shame for doing this. It's just it's very cultural, right? Some cultures, even more than others, will just self-sacrifice women to whatever everyone else needs. And so it's really about building that self-awareness, having compassion, and that it's okay.

Denise Micelli 00:19:10  It's very common. And let's all help each other to see it and to start to actually when you do that first thing where you say to your daughter or to your son like, hey, no dirty dishes in the sink, right? Instead of you just going in there and cleaning it up really quick. First of all, it feels so good to just say what you need, and secondly, it gives you that sense of, if I could do this with bigger things now, I can be more authentic. Not only that, you can see them grow because they're like, I had to do this. You know, mom's making this great meal and I'm leaving her my dirty dish. What the heck's going on? So you can start to see it as you work on it. You can get more courage, more momentum to do it with bigger things like, hey, I don't want to be in this job anymore or whatever it is. And being realizing that just because I'm good at it even doesn't mean I have to keep doing it right.

Debbie Spector Weisman 00:20:05  So let's say you spend your whole life being a people pleaser. How do you make that first step, or take that first step to say, I'm not going to do this anymore?

Denise Micelli 00:20:17  Well, I think the first thing is really having that self-awareness to be able to share with a coach through the process that I use, which is really just connecting to what is it that you really want to do. And a lot of times women will say, well, I don't have time for that. And then we dig a little deeper and find out, what do you spend your time doing? And what comes up is a lot of doing for others. And again, it's not about not doing for others. It's about making sure you're one of those others, making sure that your personal needs are as important because like they say about you on the airplane, put your mask on first and we don't do that enough. And so it's really just building that self-awareness. And one of the things that I ask people to do is how do you look at your week? Like, where is the time for you? I can remember when I was in the height of my career, ten, 12-hour days at the office, coming home, making dinner, cleaning up, never asking for too much.

Denise Micelli 00:21:13  And it was. I was taking it all on, cleaning out, doing all the things. I used to end up with a stack of books by my bed, because by the time I got to that point where I could actually be reading, I was exhausted. And so many women can relate. So we do like a time check in to see what does your week look like? Where is the ‘me’ time? And many of them will say that same thing. It's like right before I'm going unconscious and I'm so tired that I get to read one page or something like that. So we have to check in with how we're living, what we feel about it, maybe own up to the fact that this was not about blame or shame, but it's about recognizing where it started, that it maybe was generational, that it is a cultural phenomenon as well, and that it is okay to really look at your life and start with little things. Like I said, when you're talking to someone that you've been regularly saying yes when you want to say no and just saying, I'm not sure about that and just give yourself the space to if you don't because a lot of people get stuck on that.

Denise Micelli 00:22:15  How do I even say it? Well, just take a pause. Just don't say yes right away. That's a good step. And then you can come back send them a little text or send them an email and say, hey, you know what? I've got too many things stacked up on Saturday. I'll help you the next time. And that way they start to get used to the fact that you're not just a yes man or yes woman that you are thinking about these things and showing up for yourself and maybe even share with them. Oh, you know what? I've got to finish this assignment or whatever, but you don't want to make it sound like an excuse or even get necessarily give a reason, because sometimes people will be so used to you giving all the time. They might argue with you, and that's not going to help you to feel stronger in it. So do it simple and do it gradual and it will build up that momentum. But yes, self-awareness and working with somebody that can help you kind of get at what are your kind of saboteurs that are working really against you? They're telling you if you keep doing if you keep saying yes, then someday, magically, everyone is just going to love you and give you everything that you want.

Denise Micelli 00:23:21  And really, it's about self-love when we show up in the world as taking care of ourselves and loving ourselves, that's when we're going to attract that very same energy. We don't want a partner who's going to expect us to give, give, give, give, right? So yeah, that's what I would say to get started.

Debbie Spector Weisman 00:23:38  And does it also help to actually schedule time for yourself, literally put it on the schedule and keep to it?

Denise Micelli 00:23:45  Absolutely. I mean, that's what we'll find is that from the moment women get up, when we do this little time check in on what we're doing, there is literally no time for themselves. So it's like, if start small, start with ten minutes of walking out in a beautiful park in the morning or whatever. It is something that makes you feel good. You have to put it in there. Especially because  how busy women get with all of the hats that we wear. Absolutely. That's one of the things that we look at is like, what are your routines? 

Denise Micelli 00:24:16  Take self-care. I would love to just say once when you go to that spa 3 or 4 times a year, that's a wonderful thing. But that should be in addition to little daily things that you do. Reading a delightful book of something you love before bed, journaling when you wake up, whatever calls to you that you're not making time for. Set that alarm a little earlier if you got little ones, or just let your partner know, hey, when I get up, this is what I'm going to be doing, and I'll be over here doing that, and then we'll go have coffee or whatever it is. But it's drawing a boundary to just say, this is something I will feel so good if I do every single day. And then making a commitment to yourself, it really does open up the space for you to be and to say no. And then when you say yes, you're doing it with a more of an open heart because you're not just doing it out of this sort of saboteur energy that is feeling like you're trapped in it, you're actually making a choice and saying, you know what? I went to that other thing last Saturday.

Denise Micelli 00:25:13  Yeah, let's go do that. And so you really begin to feel that more aligned authentic self, and you show up and attract that same kind of energy back into your life as well?

Debbie Spector Weisman 00:25:26  Absolutely. And I want to talk about one other little area that on the surface also sounds like it could be a good thing, but it really isn't. And that's about being a perfectionist. I mean, this is something I struggled with for a very long time. I had to be perfect, especially in my writing. Everything had to be perfect and wonderful or else it didn't matter. And it took a long time to realize that. Oh, better to be real.

Denise Micelli 00:25:53  Yes. And I think that what comes along with that, we call it the stickler. You know, it's like we get so lost in the weeds of details that we end up with inaction. You've written a book. I'm starting to write my first book, and I just keep going back and revising and I'm like, go forward and get the whole thing out.

Denise Micelli 00:26:12  Then you're going to go back many times and revise it. But it's like I got a little bit stuck in that energy because you keep thinking, oh, I don't like the structure, right? You there's always something that you could change. And so when you get caught in that, you're ending up wasting time. You feel frozen at the thought of it not being perfect. So you get this anxiety, you get frustration with other people who may be supporting you, and they're just trying to get you to get more work done. So really what ends up happening is you waste more time worrying about the 20% of things. And really, if you focus on the 80% of things, you would move forward. And I think there's a lot of fear of failure there. That could be another saboteur related sort of lie, because if we are so afraid of it not being perfect and fearing that it's going to be a failure, we can just end up not completing it at all. And I think the one thing as an entrepreneur, as you know, is that we are going to make mistakes.

Denise Micelli 00:27:14  We're going to launch something that's not going to work. We're going to have to modify it. And if we if we don't build that muscle of like failure is part of life and that sometimes we have to go back and tweak it. But if we focus on that 20%, we lose ourselves in the weeds and we don't go any further. And really, it's that same thing. What are the positives of this perfectionist? Well, you want quality work. You want to be detail oriented. It comes from a good place. But it's like on steroids, right? It's taken too far and then it backfires. So it's again that idea of like, okay, what kind of energy am I approaching this project with? And so that self-awareness of like, if I feel really tense and I feel really like I can't even get a sentence corrected, then I need to say, where is that energy coming from? It's coming from my stickler, my procrastinator, this energy in me that is not trusting that it's okay if it's not a perfect sentence, right? There's a million ways to write one idea, and you just got to pick one and move on.

Denise Micelli 00:28:22  And you could run it by an editor, you could run it through a software. You can get other ideas, but don't get so caught up in this pattern of like, there's going to be this one ideal. Every single book I've ever read, especially as somebody that writes, you look at something and you go, okay, that chapter was okay. But you know, I would have left this part out. So there's never going to be a perfect thing. But did I still learn something from the book? That's really what people remember. They don't remember. Oh, chapter six was kind of boring. They're not going to do that. Now, of course, if every chapter is like very confusing and all that, they're not going to read the book. But the point is that a perfectionist  gets stuck on that 20%. So keep that in mind if you find yourself really sticking to like, oh, the grammar, or this one chapter or this one piece of a project, you probably got that overworking perfectionist energy going.

Denise Micelli 00:29:15  And you can kind of say, wait a minute, is that realistic now? Or I'm just maybe need to take a break from this and move away from it and just call it out and say, you know what perfectionist in me I'm not going to buy into that. I'm going to move forward. Maybe I'll check on it tomorrow, but I'm going to move forward with the next paragraph or whatever it is and, and really try to befriend these parts of us that are actually really challenging because you can soften them and you can realize you can step back from them and say, not really buying into this energy that I can't move past this. So it's really that self-awareness.

Debbie Spector Weisman 00:29:52  Oh it is. And I think in reality, nobody is perfect. And so if you acknowledge that you are you are, you're more authentic. And that'll also make you more of a person people want to be with and person you're going to want to be with.

Denise Micelli 00:30:09  Exactly. Back in the days when we first started on YouTube as a culture, right, everything was so edited and so perfect, and now you see people like they make mistakes, or they laugh, or something happens in the background, and they just keep going.

Denise Micelli 00:30:22  And I just feel like that we need to look at things around us and realize that life is imperfect. We are imperfect. And part of the procrastinator is that we think we can control everything, when actually the only thing we can control is our view on it and our reaction to it. And so when we look at that, it's like, okay, you know, like you said, there is no perfect. 

Debbie Spector Weisman 00:30:46  Denise, how can people find out more about you and your work?

Denise Micelli 00:30:49  So people can find me at my website, rockyourblocks. It's all about rocking your blocks to happiness. And you can find my social media on there. And also like free guide that you could download on finding your passion and purpose. So thank you so much for having me on the show. It is really a pleasure.

Debbie Spector Weisman 00:31:08  Thank you for being here. I very much appreciate it. We've been speaking about the qualities that hold us back with Denise Micelli. I hope you've enjoyed today's program. If so, please hit that subscribe button so you don't miss out on any future episodes. Until next time, this is Debbie Spector. Weisman saying sweet dreams, everybody.

Announcer 00:31:29  You've been listening to Dream Power Radio with your host, Debbie Spector Weisman. For more information on Debbie or to sign up for her newsletter, go to DreamPowerRadio.com. This has been Dream Power Radio.