Money Mom Podcast

62: From NASA to Nervous System Healing: A Conversation on Anxiety, Emotions & Money with Dr. Stephanie Lopez

• Rachel Coons

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In this powerful episode of The Money Mom Podcast, I sit down with my dear friend and mindset expert, Dr. Stephanie Lopez—former NASA executive coach turned anxiety and emotional wellness mentor—to talk all things emotional regulation, motherhood, and money stress.

Steph shares her unexpected journey from leading leadership trainings at NASA to helping women dismantle anxiety, heal emotional wounds, and feel safe in their own lives again. We dive deep into how anxiety really shows up (spoiler: it’s not always what you think), how to decode your emotions using the "emotion wheel," and why nervous system regulation is the secret to transforming your money story.

We also talk about:

  • The difference between stress and anxiety (and why it matters)
  • How emotional spending and avoidance create money chaos
  • Practical tools to regulate your emotions before facing financial decisions
  • What your body is trying to tell you when it’s in fight-or-flight
  • How to get off the hamster wheel of shame, panic, and self-judgment

This is an episode every overwhelmed mama needs. If you’ve ever felt like you’re “fine” on the outside but unraveling on the inside—this one’s for you.

Connect with Dr. Steph:

xoxo,
Rachel

Where to find me:
Instagram: @heyrachelcoons
TikTok: @heyrachelcoons

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Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Money Mom podcast, the show where we empower moms to take control of their finances, break free from money stress and build a life of freedom, confidence and abundance for their families. I'm your host, rachel Koons, mom money mentor and your personal cheerleader on this journey. Whether you're here to save money, pay off debt or dream bigger for your family's future to save money, pay off debt or dream bigger for your family's future, you're in the right place here. We believe that being a mom is already a full-time job, but your role in shaping your family's financial success is just as important. And the best part, you don't need to sacrifice everything to start winning with money let's get started. This is the Money Mom Podcast. Money let's get started. This is the Money Mom Podcast.

Speaker 1:

Hello, and welcome back to another episode of the Money Mom Podcast. Today I have a very special guest who I am so excited to bring on here. She's a dear friend of mine, who has helped me a lot in my life, and she's full of wisdom, full of knowledge, full of actual training. And so, steph, welcome to the podcast. Or should I say Dr Steph? I feel like we need to say doctor, because she is a doctor Steph. I know her as Steph Steph. Welcome to the podcast.

Speaker 2:

Oh, thank you so much. I'm so happy to be here. Just call me Steph, yeah.

Speaker 1:

I've never gone to a doctor, but I respect it and I think it's amazing, Thank you. Can you tell us a little bit about your training, what you do in the online space and why you are so perfect for today's episode?

Speaker 2:

Oh, yes, absolutely Okay. I'm going to start perhaps in the middle of my journey. The peak of my journey was when I was working at NASA and I attended this workshop and I walked into this room. Going into this room, who I was on the outside was different than who I was on the inside. I was somebody who worried every single day but nobody would know. On the outside I looked like I had it together, that I was probably raised like white picket fence, you know that kind of family, that kind of mom, and the worry just caused me so much overwhelm, stress, all the things. I wanted everything to go according to plan. I tried to make sure that things went according to plan and then I showed up at this workshop and by the time I got to noon on day one, my mind was literally blown, like I have the mind blown emoji coming out right now and I was like jaw on the floor. Everything that I know is a lie.

Speaker 1:

I've had a couple of those experiences in life.

Speaker 2:

Yes, and so I. What should I say about that experience? Basically, that is the foundation of everything that I do today. At that point I was already almost a doctor. I had done everything but my dissertation, and so I was very knowledgeable in psychology and all the emotions, and it still shifted everything for me. Maybe I'll sum it up like this If somebody resonates with, sometimes feeling broken or flawed at the core, that's how I felt going in, and what I very quickly realized is that there was a lot of things I was doing on a daily basis that were causing the things that I thought made me broken.

Speaker 1:

And what were some of those things?

Speaker 2:

Some of those a big one trying to control my emotions, trying to suppress them, trying to stop them. I was raised in a family where I really was like not OK to be emotional. You should like not have emotions and just be pleasant and happy. And you know, kind of like the good girl syndrome where follow the rules, do the right thing, prioritize other people, don't cause any problems. And that was causing me a lot of problems.

Speaker 1:

Honestly, that's one thing that I love about you, steph is, and I don't I hope you don't mind me saying this, but the second we jumped on the zoom call today. I asked Steph, how are you doing? And she said I'm actually kind of grumpy today. And do you know? My first reaction was like wow, I'm so. That's so cool that she felt like she could show up authentically and tell me how she's actually doing. And so often we want to put on these masks of I'm OK, I'm smiley, I'm happy I'm here, I'm supposed to be on your podcast and I'm supposed to show up perfectly. And I'm supposed to show up perfectly. But how much better do you feel letting somebody in and how much better do I feel Because I'm like, oh yeah, I know those days. I have those days too.

Speaker 2:

Yes, I used to pretend every single day and of course sometimes I still fall into that, but most of the time I'm just like F that I'm not going to pretend anymore. And what if it's OK to be human and feel grumpy sometimes or feel whatever I'm going to feel. Thank you for saying that and acknowledging that.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah. So what was that conference on? If you don't mind me asking, what were they? What did they bring you in and do with you that made you have this massive breakthrough?

Speaker 2:

experience. Yes, it was like, and, if you want to know, come into my world Exactly. It's hard to describe and I'll do my best. It was. If you've ever felt stuck, it was exactly why you felt stuck around anything and how to get unstuck, heightening self-awareness, heightening the choice that you see that you have in life and increasing self-acceptance, and it's a foundation of everything that I do today.

Speaker 1:

So this was a mindset training for NASA employees. They were trying to help you. This was not a like. This was more like a leadership training for people.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah it was for yeah, for work, uh. Basically, the belief is that if we improve the person, the organization improves, because 80 percent of organization issues are people issues.

Speaker 1:

A hundred percent. Yeah, yeah, okay, that's really cool and I think that's so cool that. Nasa gave you that opportunity Very cool. So then, what happened after that light bulb experience? How did your work shift and change? Because I know what you do now, I know what you did then. I don't really know the bridge.

Speaker 2:

Yeah yeah. Most people are like like wait a second, so you used to work at NASA and now you help people with anxiety. I don't get it with them. It turns out people are people and so I was doing a lot of what I'm doing today at NASA. But essentially, what is the question that you asked?

Speaker 1:

to make sure I answer the question, you said how did you get yeah, how did you get working at NASA to working in your business now.

Speaker 2:

Okay, so in that moment I had this download which I don't think I knew it was a download back then of. I have to spread this to as many people as possible and help moms so that they raise their children in a different way than I was raised, because the way that I was showing up was the way that I was taught to be. And it created issues where I was having reoccurring emotional breakdowns. I was struggling with anxiety. I was stressed, overwhelmed, inauthentic, pretending bursts, outbursts of anger, you name it.

Speaker 2:

And so I'm like I know I'm not the only one and I want as many people as possible to know about this. Now, seven years goes by. I'm just still working at NASA, because who leaves NASA? It's an incredible place to work. I loved it and I was coaching executives there directors, you know different levels of leadership and what we were talking about almost all the time was emotions and fear and people pleasing and how to communicate effectively when conversations felt really hard, and I'm like this is what I want to do, but for more people, and even though I knew that I was terrified of leaving because I come from a family of entrepreneurs and I've seen a lot of struggle, a lot of struggle and you know foreclosures, loss of money, all kinds of things and I made a pact with myself I'm never going to do that.

Speaker 2:

And the universe laughed at me because here we are, yeah, there you are and you're killing it, and you're killing it, thank you.

Speaker 2:

Thank you, um, so I had this is gonna finally answer your question. I had my second baby in March 2020 and it was a very low point for me low low point where I actually went to my six-week postpartum appointment and got medication anxiety medication and then I just picked up the prescription and I stared at it and I was like I don't actually want to take this, but I am not me right now, Like I don't feel good. And then I was like you know, I know how to help myself. This is what I do for other people.

Speaker 1:

I can do this, and so I did, and just having that experience and having another low gave me the courage. Finally I think it was like seven months later to leave NASA Wow Cool. And now and now, you help women all over the country deal with this same thing. Yeah, that's so cool. One thing that you said earlier was that you said everything on the outside looked fine, but everything on the inside didn't feel fine, and I know there are listeners right now that are resonating with that.

Speaker 1:

Everybody, at some point or another, shows up. We show up as we've got it all together, especially as moms. Right, we have to take the kids to school and see the women at school, and then we have to go run errands and look all put together. But so many people are struggling internally and I think there's a difference between somebody who's struggling just with stress of motherhood and then that deeper anxiety, right, like these are two different things. So can you speak to the difference between those two and how they kind of show up?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, absolutely, how they kind of show up. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So anxiety really is and most people don't look at it this way a mismanagement of other emotions, okay, and so someone who resonates with feeling anxious, usually, if I ask them well, what else are you feeling?

Speaker 2:

Their emotion vocabulary is quite small okay and and and they're like I yeah, I don't know um, and so stress? When you look at stress, it's usually a, usually a very tangible thing, like I can point to this, and I feel stressed out about this anxiety. It's, we're there's this fear of this thing that might happen, rather than this tangible thing in front of me. All the what ifs, what if this, what if that, what if this, what if that.

Speaker 1:

So anxiety is more future-based unknown fear of the of the unknown, what the future can be. Okay, so then, how would you say? Anxiety shows up in day-to-day life, with women and moms specifically? That's because who listens to this podcast mostly? If somebody were to say like this is how it looks for someone who's struggling with anxiety, what does it look like?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so some symptoms that we can talk about, some concrete ones. Ruminating is super common, so we're going over a conversation, a potential conversation, or even one that we, you know, maybe just had over and over and over again. The mind is trying to solve it or make it better or learn from it. And this is where mismanagement of other emotions comes in, because when we're ruminating we're actually rehashing something surface level, rather than when the mind is doing that, probably there's some level of I feel embarrassed or I feel judged and people are not diving deeper and identifying it. So overthinking is under feeling.

Speaker 1:

Wow, okay, I've never heard it explained like that, but if someone is going through those cyclical like can't get it off their mind, it's because they haven't dove deeper into what's actually feeling. And I think a lot of the time it probably is judgment, right, or fear of what other people think about you. Yeah, or how you show showed up okay, interesting, anything, anything else yeah.

Speaker 2:

so before I share more, I like to think of it as if you imagine a pool and then, if you're stuck in ruminating or overthinking, you're just, you know, on a raft on the top of the water and we really want to dive in so we can get a release. When you dive in, you're free.

Speaker 1:

You like touch the bottom. Then you come, you're going to come back up, yeah, and what are some of the ways that you help people with that, like regulating emotion? What kind of exercises yeah, okay.

Speaker 2:

So let's dive into that. Oh my gosh, where do we start? Some of the very first things are pretty simple. Let's look at an emotion wheel. Anytime you feel anxious, pull up something called an emotion wheel, which you can Google it there's tons out there for everybody listening and ask yourself what else am I feeling? I'm flashing back to a particular client, and the first time she did this, she had the mind blown emoji because she was like wait a second, like this time when I say I was feeling anxious, I was feeling overwhelmed. And then another time that I was feeling anxious, I was feeling insecure. And another time I was said I was feeling anxious, I was feeling embarrassed. Wow, yes. And so part of this is just a direct reflection of the limited emotion vocabulary coming out in, like this global word of anxiety. However, we're going to address an insecurity different than we would address overwhelm, yes. And so getting granular in that way is really important, because you're going to take different steps to solve it.

Speaker 1:

Wow, well yeah, so when this reminds me similar to anger, that anger is one of those blanket emotions as well. And when we were working with Eliza, one of our common friends, and when we were working with Eliza, one of our common friends, my husband a lot of his emotions come out as anger, and she did that same thing with him was like OK, when you feel anger, what are you actually feeling? And the deeper issue was he was not feeling seen.

Speaker 1:

I was going to say not heard, not feeling heard, and that to me was like a mind blowing experience, because when I experience his anger it shuts me down, but when I understand that it's because he's not feeling heard or seen or understood, it makes so much more sense than the deep emotions, yes, yes and just a side tangent.

Speaker 2:

Sometimes anger is if someone's crossed a boundary or if you've let a boundary be crossed, and then sometimes it's a secondary emotion, but very often anger and rage fall into the category of I don't feel significant, which is feeling seen. Feeling like you matter, feeling heard.

Speaker 1:

Oh, wow, oh wow Okay. That's really cool. I could talk about emotions and all this stuff all day long.

Speaker 2:

This is so fascinating to me.

Speaker 1:

I'm good, I know you're good.

Speaker 2:

I'm obsessed, okay, so we have ruminating, what else? Okay, so very common one is symptoms in the body, okay, and so not everybody experiences this, but shortness of breath, heart beating faster, twist in the stomach, dizziness, maybe one or part of the body, one side or part of the body shaking, and so those physical sensations can be super scary for people because they see that very often as a weakness and that actually exacerbates the issue.

Speaker 1:

Yes, yes, and and what would you suggest somebody who struggles with that? What's one of the things that they can do?

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So if we look at I'm going to go on a tangent, but I promise it will connect If we look at an animal and there's a threat in front of the animal and the animal's heart starts beating faster and they run. So there's energy in the legs, there's a shortness of breath, they're running, are we going to look at that animal and say weak, no, no, we would look at that and say how strong, yeah, it is the same for you. So your mind has labeled and mind has done it these physical sensations as a weakness. But in reality they are actually your body strengthening to a perceived threat. And when you see the physical sensations as a threat, if it's a weakness, you see the physical sensations as a threat. If it's a weakness, you're probably thinking that as a threat that worsens the sensations.

Speaker 1:

Right, right.

Speaker 2:

And so step one is to recognize this is actually my body strengthening. That's a good thing. Powerful, yeah, it's powerful yeah.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I use that. I use that analogy when in in my secret podcast when I talk about money and how people tend to go into flight or flight a lot when it comes to checking their bank accounts or, you know, when they look at the debt or when they're trying to just get by at the end of the month. A lot of times we turn into this fight or flight mode when it comes to finances and we see a lot of these similar reactions in the body and experiences, and that is your body reacting to that external threat. So how can you separate the two? And I actually I mean maybe I need more of your help to figure out. I teach them to acknowledge the emotion first and then get clear on that emotion before they address the external problem, which is the money. Right, you can't show up to your money problem with that heightened emotion. Yes, yeah, you have to. You have to emotionally regulate before you can look clearly. It's like looking through goggles that have paint on them, right, when we're not going to see the problem clearly.

Speaker 2:

And so that's.

Speaker 1:

this is a good tangent into money and anxiety, because this is something I see so often with the women that I work with is this and they and they and we talked about this earlier but they term it as stress, overwhelm, shame, judgment, all of those types of things, but I think that that umbrella term would be anxiety, but they actually are calling it something else. So can you speak to that a little bit?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I have a question Are they talking about having those physical sensations? Or when you say fight or flight, are you like thinking basically even the emotional reaction, the irritability, the frustration.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I think there is physical reactions. It's the pit in the stomach. You know that feeling, that weight on their shoulders throughout the day. I think they're showing up differently for their partner. Like a lot of times that tension comes into the marriage, they are more irritable with their children. Those are some of the body, first and foremost.

Speaker 2:

So most of the time, people are trying to regulate through thoughts. I'm going to make myself feel better, I'm going to think about this differently, and actually 80% of regulation needs to happen in the body, and so, in the work that I do with clients and in my free class, that's. Step one is to reset the nervous system. Yeah, and there's a whole slew of benefits, which you've already mentioned, a ton of the opposite of those, like overcoming all of that, that, your ability to put in the stomach, like bringing that down, that down. When we reset the nervous system, you can think of it as okay, we've got, you know, our parasympathetic and our sympathetic nervous system. It's bringing putting the sympathetic is the gas and the parasympathetic is the brake, and so we're bringing them into balance, essentially.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and and that the the interesting thing, the work that I've done with the nervous system is that it's different for everybody. Right, everyone regulates themselves differently, and learning how you can regulate yourself is one of the most powerful things you can do, when you can acknowledge that sympathetic turning on, and you can acknowledge the dysregulation starting to happen and put a name to it and saying like, oh, you know this is, I know I'm kind of getting out of balance right now. So what do I need to do? And Eliza calls it the bank account, right, do we need to put more deposits in the bank account? So, yeah, really being able to find out what puts you back into regulation is so powerful, so that way you can show up to those hard conversations, the hard experiences, because again, they're going to happen. You're going to have times where you have external things that are causing stress and anxiety, and being able to look at them with a better lens is so important.

Speaker 2:

Look, at them with a better lens is so important. Yeah, and one of the most effective things period is breathwork, because the way that we can, you know, control our heart essentially is through breath. But it's not just any kind of breathwork, it's not just oh, let me just Google, how should I be breathing? Oh, this YouTube thing says do this box breath? Oh, this you know source says do this kind of breathing. And so what I actually do with clients is help them identify their optimal breathing rate, and we can do that by using data from your heart, using a heart rate sensor, just for one session. That's so cool using data from your heart, using a heart rate sensor, just for one session, to see what does your body actually need in terms of the pace of breathing to reset it.

Speaker 1:

That's super cool because it is again like I said earlier, it's very individualized. So that's why the work you're doing is so, so important, because you can really speak to the individual and what they're struggling with, because everyone's story is different, everyone's underlying emotions are different, and that's why coaching is so important, right? That's why we need coaches to see the things that we don't see and help us through the things that we don't understand.

Speaker 2:

All of us have blind spots. Yes, 100% 100%.

Speaker 1:

Well, and it's so funny to me because this is something you were talking about earlier I find it really fascinating that NASA and most big corporations put so much money into training their executive leaders, their you know, top dogs, and I really feel strongly that a lot of times, why that work that they're doing is life-changing for them. And I feel like because moms who choose to stay home with their children take themselves out of the workforce a lot of the times they get left in the dust when it comes to this kind of stuff, when they're so struggling with depression, anxiety, all of these really hard emotions. They don't have the training, they don't have the corporation that's willing to pay for them to get this help, and so often we put ourselves on the back burner because we're taking care of everyone in the family and we're just silently. It's all happening inside. We're silently struggling, just silently. It's all happening inside.

Speaker 1:

We're silently struggling and the work that you do again is so important and the work that so many of our friends do is so important, because women need help too and moms need this help more than anything. And you know, yeah, we can get an ROI in a company when a when an executive shows up better. But think about the change that can happen in your family, in your marriage, in the generational change that can happen when one women, one woman, decides to change her narrative and to change her story and to show up better in life. Yeah, oh, that gives me chills.

Speaker 2:

I couldn't agree more, and I had this moment, quick, tangent, but it relates this I did a training at NASA and afterwards someone scheduled an appointment with me and I was like, oh well, it's odd, I guess he has questions. So then he came and we sat down and he didn't have any questions and he looked at me in the eyes and he said you need to leave. You can have more of an impact outside the gates, and that was in 2013, maybe 2014. And I didn't leave until 2021. But I did always remember that. But I did always remember that and that's one thing that I told myself I will have a greater impact outside the gates because I'm going to target women who need this.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, just like you did right, Just like how it changed you.

Speaker 2:

Yes, in every relationship, every person they touch, it changes those lives.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So I said this earlier that a lot of the women that I work with feel this stress around money, that it shows up as stress. Why do you think that that is? Why do you think that money breeds this heightened sense of emotion?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean. The first thing that pops in my mind is for many people, most people, money equals safety.

Speaker 1:

Okay.

Speaker 2:

Would you agree?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, well, they have created that belief.

Speaker 2:

Yes, yes, yes, I certainly did, mm-hmm, I certainly did, yeah. And so the number one thing that your subconscious mind is going to be doing all the time is to protect you, to keep you safe. Your bank account or you get an unexpected bill in the mail, it's like a direct cut to your safety, over and over and over again, your sense of safety.

Speaker 1:

Mm-hmm, and it creates that spiral experience. Yeah, and the thing that the hardest that I have to help people with and you can speak to this a little bit is when we don't feel safe, then we make decisions that create more chaos.

Speaker 2:

More of an issue.

Speaker 1:

And create more money problems, and then it's like this cyclical round of I can't ever get out of it because I'm constantly feeling stressed, and then I'm constantly making decisions that are not helping me. So can you speak to that a little bit?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, do you have a specific question around that? I feel like I could go in a few different directions.

Speaker 1:

Sure. So yeah, I think one of the things is like how do we get people out of that cycle? What would you, what would, what were some of the things that you would do to help people get out of that cycle?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, okay, so are people avoiding?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, oh, some people.

Speaker 2:

Yes, yes. What are some of the most common ones? Avoiding it.

Speaker 1:

And then another one would be to emotionally spend. Right, you feel bad, so then you go out and spend more money, and then you feel bad that you spent the money, and then you know it just creates that.

Speaker 2:

Got it Okay, so let's talk about both of those. Sorry, I was taking a note, so I don't forget. You're good, Okay. So with the avoidance super tempting and very common actually for people who struggle with anxiety.

Speaker 1:

I'm like.

Speaker 2:

I don't want to see this. I don't want to, and one of the things that's going to help people be the most effective not only with money but in life is to expand their tolerance to feel all of it. And when we avoid something, we don't expand our tolerance, we actually keep ourselves stuck. So if I avoid feeling um with money, issues may be embarrassed yeah, I don't yeah, if I avoid that, that like embarrassment feeling, that like oh my gosh, I'm worse off than I should be.

Speaker 1:

Yes, I'm worse off than I should be.

Speaker 2:

I'm worse off than I should be. All of the shame, all of that. If I avoid it, I never get better at dealing with it. And then it controls my life because you're going to feel embarrassed again, you're going to feel shame again, and then you got no better at expanding your tolerance for it. So now it controls you rather than you controlling it for it. So now it controls you rather than you controlling it. Well, and so that's just one shift to I. By avoiding something, I am choosing to make my life harder. Do I want to do that? Because it's not how people are thinking about it. They're like, okay, well, that's a problem for tomorrow or for next month version of me, or if you know, if I don't, if I don't think about it, like it'll be fine, but it won't. With the emotional spending, the first place to start is actually identifying, like allowing yourself to go deeper, because emotional spending is just an ineffective coping mechanism.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

So by overspending and avoiding is an example of this too, and I can give other examples, if that would be helpful. What am I avoiding feeling? Because, in the moment that I'm doing it, that keeps me from feeling bad about myself. Mm-hmm, that keeps me from feeling bad about myself. What if it's okay to feel like, well, okay, I made a choice that I didn't want to make. How do I want to handle this now? What's coming up? What else.

Speaker 1:

I think that that's 100%. It always goes back to the regulating emotions and self-mastery. In that regard, being able to. I mean, the first thing that I always do is we have to bring it to consciousness, right. So often people are just running on whatever. They're used to, the habits that they've created, the experiences that they created, the emotions that they've created. And the second we step back and we say what's happening here? We get curious about how it's showing up, how we're showing up. We say what's going on. We take back power. What do they say? Like shame lives in the shadows.

Speaker 1:

Yes, right, it's the same thing your habits are living in the shadows. Yes, right, it's the same thing your habits are living in the shadows. Your problems that you're, the symptoms that we're experiencing, they're all living in the shadows. Yeah, and so the work that you do and I do is very similar in that respect. We're literally just saying like take a pause, take a second and and recognize them. Would you call it like diagnosing, even like diagnose the problem problem, because you can't solve a problem you can't diagnose.

Speaker 2:

We have to figure out. You can't solve a problem you won't look at. Yes, yes, exactly, you can avoid it and you won't look at it. It's always going to be there and it will grow. Yes, a hundred percent, it'll just keep growing.

Speaker 1:

Yes, I feel that so strongly. I feel that so strongly and I think when it comes to money, that's where our worlds cross. So much is because of that feeling of anxiety, totally, yeah. To wrap this up, do you have any words of encouragement for maybe a woman who's listening, who is struggling financially or just feeling like what you said, like everything's perfect on the outside but the inside's not matching that. Any words of encouragement for that person?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you put meaning on everything.

Speaker 2:

Because you're human, not because anything's wrong with you. Your mind has five primary roles. One of them is to make up stories, and so just pay attention to what you're telling yourself on a regular basis. When you open that bank statement and you see what you haven't wanted to see, what happens next internally? Are you telling yourself that you're terrible at this? Are you telling yourself why can't I get my crap together? What are you saying? You get to choose the meaning. You could change that story and say, okay, up to now I've made choices that I don't feel great about. No judgment, just the facts. I don't feel great about it. And going forward, what do you want to do? Pay attention to that meeting, because if you tell yourself nasty things, your emotional reaction is going to be a lot worse. Yeah, a lot worse.

Speaker 1:

Love that. Yeah, if someone resonates with what you're saying, or someone you know wants to get help with this, but feels embarrassed or overwhelmed, what's one thing that they could do today either to reach out to you. How could they find you when? What's the next step?

Speaker 2:

what's the next step?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, Best place to find me is on Instagram.

Speaker 2:

My handle I'm sure you'll put in the show notes too, but it's Dr Stephanie Lopez. So Dr Stephanie Lopez. And then I have a free class on ditching anxiety. Watch it. I go over my four-step process of exactly what I did and what I guide all my clients through to get out of fight or flight ditch anxiety and heal.

Speaker 1:

And we'll put that link, the link for that, in the show notes as well. And you have a podcast too, right I do yeah.

Speaker 2:

What's your podcast name?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, the.

Speaker 2:

Broken to Brave Podcast.

Speaker 1:

The Broken to Brave Podcast and Stephanie hosts retreats. She works with women one-on-one. Don't you have a group coaching program as well?

Speaker 2:

I do.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, so reach out to her if you want more help with this. Like I said, stephanie, we've known each other what? For two years now? Yeah, about two years. Stephanie's helped me through some pretty high emotional experiences and the calm energy that she brings to the room Like she's like even on this podcast with her today like just a sense of calm I feel when in your presence and that is that's pretty magical, that you can do that in a world of so much angst, so much hardness you know you bring that calming energy and so many people need that.

Speaker 1:

And so I love the work that you do and I'm so grateful that you came on the podcast. I think we also probably need to have you in the membership. I think we probably need to do a masterclass. I'm sure I'm going to get members reaching out to me and saying bring her in, we need to have a class with her.

Speaker 1:

So we'll have to set that up as well. That would be really special. Okay, thanks so much for joining us today and thank you again, stephanie, so much. Thank you, thanks so much for tuning into this episode of the Money Mom podcast. I hope you're walking away feeling inspired, empowered and ready to take the next step toward financial confidence and freedom for your family. If you've loved today's episode, it would mean so much to me if you'd subscribe, leave a review and share this podcast with another mom who could use a little extra encouragement on her money journey. And don't forget to connect with me on Instagram at HeyRachelKuhns, or you can join our Thriving Money Mom Club for even more tips, support and resources to help you save, spend and build wealth intentionally. You've got this, mama, and I'm here to cheer you on every step of the way. Until next time, remember, every dollar you manage with purpose is another step toward the life you've been dreaming of. I'll see you back here soon on our next episode.

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Rachel Coons

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