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The Working Mums Podcast
Teaching working mums mind & emotional management tools so they enjoy their kids, their job & themselves again without all the shitty mum guilt.
The Working Mums Podcast
Ep #61 - When Life Coaching Meets Divine Guidance
Something a little bit different this week my friends... I was a guest on my friends podcast recently and we had such a lovely conversation that I wanted to share it with you all.
What happens when life coaching principles merge with divine guidance? This thoughtful conversation explores the profound transformation that occurs when coaches embrace both professional techniques and spiritual support.
The heart of our discussion centers on the remarkable shifts we both experienced when finally inviting God into our coaching practices. Having initially approached business from purely secular perspectives, we share the dramatic "explosion" of possibilities that emerged through surrender to divine guidance. This conversation shatters the notion that spirituality and professional coaching must remain separate domains.
We dive deep into how life coaching helps create healthier relationships – first with ourselves, then with everyone around us. When we learn to be kind to ourselves, we honor the divine creation that we are. This ripples outward, transforming how we parent, partner, and move through the world. Rather than controlling others' emotions or making them mean something about us, we create space for authentic connection.
Whether you're religious, spiritual-but-not-religious, or simply curious about maximizing your life's potential, this episode offers powerful insights on "drawing a line in the sand" – acknowledging your past without being defined by it, and consciously choosing who you want to become. Discover how coaching complements faith to create a foundation for truly extraordinary living.
You can also watch this episode on YouTube with Captions - https://www.youtube.com/@TheWorkingMumsLifeCoach
If you'd like to have a chat about how I can help you further, please don't hesitate to click here & book a time with me, I'd love to meet you.
You can also follow me on IG @NickyBevan_LifeCoach
Welcome, welcome, welcome to this week's podcast, and I've got something for you a little bit different this week. So I had the privilege of being a guest speaker on my friend's podcast. She is the Catholic Life Coach and she invited me on to talk to her all about life coaching, our perception of life coaching and how bringing God or faith into coaching can help, and so I thought I would just come on first of all and just explain to you my relationship with God, because I think it's kind of unconventional and certainly not the normal religious, even though there's lots of different religions, kind of descriptions. So I don't label myself as a religion, I don't choose to follow a particular religion, but recently I have come to realize that my description of the universe can be summed up by that one word God, and it has, for me personally, no religious connection at all. So the word God, my description of God, is the universal love, light, unseen support and energy that we all belong to as humans, and it's there to guide us and support us and help us, and up until recently I hadn't allowed myself to receive this love or this support or this guidance. So when I say the word God, that is the description that I relate to Now.
Speaker 1:Your description may be very different to Carla's description, who I'm being interviewed by, and so what I would just like to invite you to be open to when you're hearing our conversation is just being open to considering what a higher power looks like for you. How would you describe it? How I describe it isn't necessarily how you should describe it. You could, but you don't have to. Another thing that's quite different for me when it comes to the word God is. For me, my God is feminine, so that's a slight difference in your traditional kind of coach, religious dialogue or dialect.
Speaker 1:So I invite you to listen to this podcast. It will give you a really lovely understanding of life coaching through our eyes, and I just hope it helps to consider maybe opening yourself up to the universe and all its love that it has to offer. You have a lovely week. I hope you enjoy this episode and if you want to find out more about Carla, I will put all of her details in the show notes below so you can look her up on Instagram. You can go to her website if she resonates with you. She's a wonderful, wonderful soul.
Speaker 2:Have an amazing day, bye hi, loves and welcome to this episode. In this episode, I am beyond excited because I have a dear friend coming on with me. Her name is Nikki Bevan. She's my love, my friend. I'm so excited to have you on. Welcome, thank you. This is so fun. Please, nikki, share who you are and tell us about you.
Speaker 1:Yes, and I'm going to give you the clean version of who I am because, as Carla knows, I sometimes have a bit of a potty mouth, but I'm not going to bring that into this space today. So thank you for inviting me. I am Nikki Bevan. I class myself as the very loving absolutely no BS life coach for working mums who love their job. She fiercely loves her children, but she isn't really enjoying either because of this relentless kind of hamster wheel. She feels she's over on on overwhelm and mum guilt and just feeling exhausted trying to keep everybody happy all of the time she's snapping at her kids and then she's beating herself up for snapping at her kids because that's not who she wants to be. Um, so, yes, I just help her with practical time management skills, but so much more importantly that mind, emotional and spiritual connection that we have in us, um, that's what I do.
Speaker 2:I love it. I love it and I think there's so many of us that are in this situation where we have so much love for our children that then we want to give them the very there are, very best. But when there's so much expectation in our minds, then we just judge ourselves and beat ourselves up Like I cannot tell you how much I relate to this. So I love it and I love that you support moms is brilliant. Yeah, I'm so excited to have you on because my idea so this past month, this month of March, has been a focus on what it is to be a life coach, what we do inside of life coaching.
Speaker 2:And for you listeners, nikki, it was certified within the life coach school I almost said the Catholic life coach school I'm very used to my title and we got certified by the same school and we met through our coach, jamie, whom you've heard me talk way too many times, and we became friends through there. But I wanted to have her on because she is a brilliant coach and I thought it would be so good to talk about what it is we do and what things we have in common. But also I would love to hear from you how life coaching has shifted your life Like. Give us a little bit of the what your life was beforehand and now, and why this is so important. Too many questions. We'll go through them, but let's just go from there okay, so I think I was.
Speaker 1:I I don't even know if you know my background of how I got into coaching.
Speaker 1:I don't think you know my story, do you? So, um, I, I have always been a positive person, in the sense that I was very used to people saying to me how are you always happy? And um, oh, nikki, you're always happy. And I kind of knew I always had a choice. But because no one seemed to agree with me, I thought this must just be me. Um, so, things like you know, when it's raining, especially here in England, everyone's like, oh, isn't it miserable? And I was like, well, no, I just put on my wellies and go and stomp in puddles, aren't I lucky that I've got a warm car to get to or a warm house to get to? And but no one seemed to agree with me and, um, or, I wasn't being realistic. I would get, oh yeah, but Nikki, we're being realistic, we're worrying, and we're being realistic. And I'm like I wasn't being realistic. I would get, oh yeah, but Nikki, we're being realistic, we're worrying and we're being realistic, and I'm like I don't really think you are. And so I had this um, yeah, I always kind of had this view, although I never was able to articulate it like I, how I know to articulate it now.
Speaker 1:But when I came across life coaching. Two of the directors of the business that I was working with at that time had been on a Tony Robbins retreat and they came back, as you would imagine, absolutely buzzing from this retreat and they were like, right, we want to bring this energy into the business. And they came to me and said, like Nikki, you're the type of person that would be brilliant at it. We're going to do energy week, we're going to do these workshops, and will you help us coordinate? And I was like, absolutely so off. We went coordinating this energy week and it was an incredible week of like. It started off nine o'clock on a Monday morning with a samba band and it was amazing and the workshops were brilliant. But as the week progressed, I was getting more and more frustrated.
Speaker 1:Um, and I had this memory of being sat in front of the careers advisor when I was 15. I was I. My grades weren't good at school. I'm not academic, um, but I remember saying to the careers advisor I really want to help people find their way. I don't want to tell them where they've got to go, but I want to help them find their way. And she sort of screwed her face up and looked at me and went oh, go and do hairdressing, which I did, didn't really enjoy it. But so I was reminded of this energy and I was getting more and more frustrated.
Speaker 1:And on the Thursday, this woman called it a listening post and you could book in 20 minutes and talk to her about anything. And I've always loved my job, I've always loved working, I really loved earning money. And so I was like no, I'm good, like my life's fine. But that Thursday morning I saw her and I was like no, I need to come and talk to you. And I sat in front of her and I just bawled my eyes out because I said to her I'm just getting more and more frustrated.
Speaker 1:I remember this conversation with the careers advisor and I said and I know it makes me sound really kooky, but I've got this energy that's trying to burst out of my arms and I don't know what to do with it. I don't know what it is. I don't know what to do with it, but it's so much more than what I'm doing now. And so she said well, have you ever heard of life coaching? And I was like never heard of life coaching. So she said well, that's what I am. I'm a life coach. I just question people and I help them find their way. So I was like, okay. So I came out of that, googled life coaching, found the life coach schools podcast and in and you you've probably told your listeners this in in I can remember Brooke saying to me in that first episode life gives us circumstances that we have no control over and they're completely neutral until our brain gets involved and our brain gives us thoughts. Our thoughts create our feelings and our feelings drive our actions and we get a result. And I was like, oh my gosh, this is actually a thing. This is a thing, this is, this is a job. And so I came home and I came absolutely buzzing and I said to my husband I'm going to be a life coach. And he's like what, the actual beep and I know.
Speaker 1:So at that point in our family life we were completely in the middle of renovating our house. So what is now my office was a temporary kitchen. I had a little camping stove, I had a microwave, we had our camping table set up next to the double bed in our bedroom. The boys' room was fine, but we were washing up in the bath and we were like that for a whole year. We were running out of money, builders weren't coming back to us, things were going wrong.
Speaker 1:My husband was stressed at work and now also stressed at home, and I was happy. I'm like this is not a problem. He's like how, how are you okay with? This is not okay, I said. But it is, isn't it? Because there are people in the world that would literally risk their lives and their children's lives to live exactly how we're living. This is not a problem, it's your thoughts about it. He did not agree. So we had a number of challenging conversations about it. And then he went into work one day and said to a work colleague do you realize, if you just changed your thoughts about that, you would feel differently. And then he was like, oh my gosh, this is true. And he had such a shift. He came home and he said you have to to do it. So he's now also a life coach. So I think that really, very unconsensually, he was my first client above myself, because I used to believe I was pathetic, I used to believe I wasn't clever enough, I was definitely useless, and I just don't have those beliefs about myself anymore because I realize we have a choice. Yeah, so that's how I got into life coaching and it just totally, totally is. Is was the job for me.
Speaker 1:And then, more recently, having opened up to to God's support, opened up to to God's support, yeah, the other time I sat and sobbed was because I wasn't. I've never really classed myself as religious. I don't know if you want to talk about this, but I never classed myself as religious. And then, um, my friend was singing in church and she said, well, just come and listen. And I was like, okay, and it was one of the most comfortable things I've ever done. But again I sat there and I was like, right, I'm gonna open myself up to the unseen love and support that is available to us from God. And that was the second time I sat and just bawled my eyes out because I realized this is nothing to do with me, this is God's plan and if I am willing to trust and release to that plan, it will all happen. And since then it feels like my business has just kind of exploded in the best way isn't it just amazing?
Speaker 2:because, you know, when I first met you, like that was not happening for you yet and I just had this because I'm very vocal when it comes to my faith and I'm very like, you know, talking about God and stuff like that and I just had this sense of like you were so filled with joy and love that it just makes sense that you would come to this and I'm just so excited for you and I love it because I think it's that realization. I had kind of the same realization. I'm going to go backwards with my business because when I was trying to have a grip on my business and have control on what I was creating and how it was being created, I left God very out of it. Like I was just very like even though I'm Catholic always have been Catholic Like I was just like well, I don't think God really wants to be a part of this thing, and I don't know how this relates. And then I remember having that moment in Holy Hour, sitting in front of the Eucharist, and then I was just like what popped in my head was you've never asked me to be a part of this journey, you've never asked me to bless your business. And I remember sobbing in there thinking, oh my goodness, you're right. Like I have never actually asked you to bless this, to provide through this, to create, go create this business with me. And since then my business picked up and I opened up to the feeling of being abundant now and co-creating with him, rather than me, so attached to how it needs to be created and by when, like when we let him lead. It's just such a completely different experience. But I actually want to go back because your story reminds me a lot of how I came to life coaching.
Speaker 2:I don't know if I've shared this with you, but I was in a weight loss. I found my coach my very first coach, through weight loss, and it was. I was in real estate because my original goal was to work from home and have flexibility and I knew that real estate wasn't it, but it was the right next step. And through there is how I found Brooke. And I remember walking in my neighborhood and I just happened to listen to the podcast. I think it was my real estate friend who sent me the episode of Are you Living your Best Life, and I remember sobbing listening to her thinking I am not living my best life I was doing the exact same thing Like I am not worthy of anything, doing the exact same thing Like I am not worthy of anything, I am not pretty enough, not smart enough, I am not talented enough, nothing. And then life coaching did not settle for me until after I had spent time with my coach.
Speaker 2:But I remember signing up my husband to become a life coach because it was like this makes sense for him, and so I signed up for the like the four day that Brooke had to explain what life coaching was and if this was for you, and my husband did not watch it. I watched it and I was like this is what I need to do, like I think at one point she was like teachers make one of the best life coaches because they already know how to teach and I'm like I'm a teacher, I want to do this. So it was just such a such a different. It feels like a completely different lifetime because I was just stuck in my circumstances, believing that I had no choice but just to take it in, and I was a victim to my circumstances and I was just very like this.
Speaker 2:I guess this is just what it is. This is it. This is as good as it gets, like I have achieved the goals and now I need to quote, unquote, settle and not dream anymore. I remember being in that place of well, I'm now in my late 20s, so, and I have kids, and so I'm not no longer allowed to dream, and I remember that was like the beginning of a completely different life. And I think in that podcast she said there are decisions in your life that completely shift the trajectory of your life, and she's like life coaching was it for me?
Speaker 2:and I'm like my goodness life coaching, plus my faith, has been a completely radical change for my life and it's just crazy, but yeah and do you?
Speaker 1:do you find that with, and you may have experienced this yourself, but there's a fear that comes along with that choice, you know, because we get our brain is so conditioned to our familiar, and so we get our brain is so conditioned to our familiar, and so we get used to that kind of lower feeling, or this is it. I shouldn't dream You're like some, some form of I, should be now a grownup and not have, you know, sensible and realistic and and so to be diff, to go against that is quite frightening for us to, especially when our family or you know cultures or society isn't quite on board with it. It's a scary thing for the, for the, for the brain and a person to go through. Did you notice that?
Speaker 2:for sure, for sure. Plus, you're like I think our brains and I'd say I say this to my clients when they're signing for coaching is like your brain will want to hide back into the cave, just because it's a moment in which your brain knows you're about to shift things. Yeah, and then you add to the fact that you're telling your brain I will no longer just blindly believe you. Your brain is like are you kidding me? Like no, no, no, no, no, we are not going down that rabbit hole. So I think, for sure it's like something that it's very normal for us to experience when we're shifting something, especially when it's such a radical shift. For sure and it takes me back to Nikki like when we're younger we don't have this, at least for me.
Speaker 2:I grew up with mom and dad who were very like go after your dreams and you offer it up and you go with God and you follow him and it will be great. And I left my country when I was 16 and I'm like I'm going to move to the US how, I have no idea, but it's going to happen. And then I just settled into, like you said, the society's belief that we have to be quote unquote realistic versus dreaming big, and if we dream big, we're being unrealistic. And what is the word that I like to use? Oh, irresponsible. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Thoughts about that, well, and it's fascinating, isn't it? There's a really good book. Actually I don't know if you've heard me say about it before Susan Jeffers Feel the Fear and Do it. Anyway. Have you heard me mention that book before?
Speaker 2:I haven't. My sister was the one that mentioned this one to me.
Speaker 1:Okay. So it's a brilliant book and she talks about that. One of the chapters is the rise of Pollyanna. About that, one of the chapters is the rise of pollyanna. So I don't think I ever watched the film of pollyanna, but pollyanna basically plays this game where she she sees the positive in everything. She, she forces herself to find the positive in everything.
Speaker 1:So there's, there's this now this kind of notion that, oh, you're being a bit of a pollyanna, as in um, it's unrealistic to look for the positives, but actually everything is always happening, the perceived good things and the perceived bad things. Life is 50-50. And even when someone is dying, someone is being born Like. You can't have one without the other. So to me it's just really fascinating how realistic is actually focusing on the negative. Yeah, when science has proven a positive mindset creates a positive result, and it's proven it over and over again. And how, how? 95, something like is a statistic like. Something like 95 of what we worry about doesn't happen. Yeah, so then you go. How? How, then, is focusing on the negative being realistic? Surely, realistic is a balance of both. It's one and the other. This could happen and this could also happen. That's realistic, that's the balance. But people in my experience have always been like no, no, no, I'm we're being realistic and I'm like, no, you're just focusing on the negative. Actually, yes, there's both.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think, like, even for us, like in my community, with our faith being such a big part of our life, when we focus on the negativity, we're just legit leaving God out of it. Yeah, like there's. We're just like this isn't working, that isn't working, I don't have enough, I'm not enough. We are legit leaving the Holy Spirit that is living within us out of the picture, yeah, and then when we focus on the negative outcome, we live him out of the picture Because it's like what we can see is our humanity, like what our human brains, things will happen, versus seeing what's possible when you let him lead. It's so much more expensive, expensive, I can't say that enough.
Speaker 1:Like you expand. I'm saying that wrong.
Speaker 2:It's not expensive. It's actually completely cheap. Yes, no, but like you are expanding while you're growing and it's like, yes, is it? Is it uncomfortable? Yes, but I think that the need of society to keep us down and to stay realistic and to follow the norm has become a reality, and now it's the opportunity to challenge that versus just staying there.
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah, and that's, and it's especially if your communities, in your family, if you're the first one doing that, change. Goodness, yes, it's. It's going to be uncomfortable for you because people don't, they don't see it, and then their fears come up and their worries come up and, um, yeah, so it takes courage to to change and to be willing to say to the world actually I might do something slightly different.
Speaker 2:Yeah for sure. I, you know. I think back to when I think I've shared this story in this podcast way too many times but when we decided to homeschool our kids, my mom and dad were like are you insane? Insane, like this is not a good idea. And they warned us and they told us all the things and I listened and I held space for their fears and their thoughts and they've caught up since then. We've been into the thing for way too long for them not to catch up. I figured they would catch up. But is that radical shifting and doing something completely different than you have seen it done? Um, and even to like, go back even more simply, my mom was the very first woman in her family to drive. Other than that, that was it. And then, like, for us it's such a normal thing now, right, like I mean, women drive, you know? Yeah but, my aunts.
Speaker 2:None of my aunts do. My mom is the only one in her family that drives fascinating.
Speaker 1:It takes someone, it takes just one person to start shifting shifting that change, isn't it?
Speaker 2:yeah, I want to know, nikki, from you like, how, why is it that you think that life coaching is so impactful and I know you do, because I've heard you talking about it. Maybe I shouldn't have said that but, like, why is it that you think it's so important? Or why do you think it would be important and beneficial for someone else to try it out?
Speaker 1:I think, on the most basic level, when you start to learn how to manage your mind and experience and manage your emotions, which is our style of coaching you have a choice and I think that is one of the most powerful gifts that we can give ourselves is the power of choice. And the only way you're able to have that choice is when you separate out your thoughts from the circumstance. So if we take the weather because I don't know, everyone in England seems to love talking about the weather, so it's raining, right, let's imagine it's tipping down with rain and everyone's like, oh, isn't it miserable, it's raining I feel terrible, this is awful, I can't do anything. Well, at that point you have no control over the weather. You have no control whether you can change that circumstance of the rain. So if it's the rain that makes you miserable and you can't change the rain, then it feels like you can't change and now you've just added helplessness onto it, and I think helplessness is the cause then into depression because I'm helpless to change. But when you take full responsibility of the fact that, okay, my thoughts about the weather make me feel miserable, well, now I've got something I can change, because I can change my thoughts at a time when I can't change the rain.
Speaker 1:Yeah, now there's a possibility, now there's a choice, and I don't always then think that that choice should always be positive. There are some situations and circumstances I choose to believe that I wouldn't be positive about. You know, if I lose someone and I love them deeply and I'm thinking I'm going to miss them, of course I want to feel grief. That is such an appropriate emotion to feel when you miss somebody. So, just because your thoughts create your feelings I don't always agree that then it's always about being positive, but it is about being deliberate for me, and it is whether it's effective.
Speaker 1:Like is how getting angry or frustrated or overwhelmed helping you do what you need to do, whatever that looks like for you, and if it's not, we can change. Yeah, and so for me, it's just. I just think it's the most powerful gift of choice and, as the, I think we're probably the only creatures on this planet that have that choice, because animals don't. Animals are instinctual and primitive and um reactive to their environment. Whereas we get to choose, we actually get to choose, and I don't think many people know that yeah, 100.
Speaker 2:And for me it's like we have such a beautiful authority to realize that I always say, like god made us in his image and likeness, for a reason we have authority in what we are believing about our circumstances and about ourselves and about the people that are around us.
Speaker 2:And one of the things I wanted to add to that of like we have a choice on the thoughts and I love that you mentioned that we do not always need to be happy and just positive, right, like we are allowed to feel all the emotions. But I think one of the biggest gifts to add to that fact of we have a choice is that we are also so it's so okay to embrace all of our emotions versus versus just shutting them or shoving them into a corner and pretending they are not there, because a lot of the times it's something I explained to my children so much with fears, because fears are. I don't like fears. I'm like fear go away, but fear is truly something that you have to take with you, learn to love and learn not to let it stop you necessarily.
Speaker 2:If you are by a cliff and you have fear, pause, okay yeah so it's appropriate right, yeah, but this is why yeah, it's like why it's so important to realize that all the feelings are allowed, like there is no shame in the feelings.
Speaker 2:I think it's when we shame the feelings that things get out of control and then we're overwhelmed, and then we're stressed and we just can't feel anything. We don't learn how to feel anything, and a lot of that is because we have been raised in a culture that is like keep it together, you should be able to figure it out on your own. It's fine, be happy. That's like no, no, that's not the full spectrum of our emotions for a reason for us to learn what it is God is trying to tell us and what we need to process in that specific moment, versus just getting ourselves moved on faster or not feeling, yeah, yeah and we've been given that full range of emotions for a reason like if you didn't know hate and fear, you wouldn't know peace and love, right, so for us to recognize the positives, there has to be the opposite, otherwise we it.
Speaker 1:How would you know? How would you know that you were feeling good if you had nothing to compare it to you? You wouldn't. And and even even how we label things as good or bad it is, it is just a sensation in your body that we then decide is this comfortable or uncomfortable?
Speaker 1:yeah um, but yeah, it is fascinating how? Because? Because our cultures tend really to be like you know, here, here in the uk, it's like shoulders back, head up, must, crack on must I'm fine I'm fine, everything's fine, I'm fine and you're like, but you're not and that's okay, you know. And so it's so much more effective to actually fully experience your emotions, not shame them, like you just said, and then you can move through so much easier yeah, I had um long time ago.
Speaker 2:I had someone tell me that my my girls cried too much and it made them uncomfortable, which is their choice, right. So, okay, that's your problem. But, like what I have told my husband throughout my years with my two girls because I do have two girls and they are very highly emotional is that I want to be there for their emotions, because at one point or another, they won't be able to hide them anymore. They're going to come pouring everywhere and I want to be able to help them and like to let them know that it's okay to feel what they're feeling and still know that they have a choice. Like, yeah, that's why I think it's so brilliant, because, like, my kids are gonna grow up knowing about life coaching. Yeah, and it just makes me so happy.
Speaker 2:My mom was an amazing mother, is an amazing mother, mom, you're an amazing mother, um, and she was very good at being there for our emotions and she did it like without knowing any of this, yeah, but she was like you're feeling what? Let's talk about it. And it created so much space for me and I was the same way. I still am like I have big emotions and I cry a lot. Right, and that's what I tell my clients. I've had people come to me I don't know if this happens to you that they're like I'm so sorry. I just, I just I'm gonna cry, I'm sorry, I'm gonna cry. Bring it in, bring it, let's have it. This is what this is for. Yes, and it's like they're. They're like I'm sorry, like I know I should have this together, like aren't I like old enough to have this together? And I'm like, no, you're not, you're not. This is. We all need a coach. Yeah, and it's okay to have these emotions.
Speaker 1:Let them out and process them yeah, emotions are so much more fun when we process them yeah, yeah, they, they're harmless, they lose their control over us.
Speaker 1:But I've got, so I've got two boys. I've got a 13 and 14 year old boys and, um, traditionally boys are brought up. That you know. Don't cry, it's a sign of weak, man up. You know all of that kind of stuff and I may have. I may have said that to them before I knew about life coaching. I don't think I did, but it may have come out because that's what society do with boys.
Speaker 1:But definitely, since I knew one, that your thoughts created your feelings and how to actually process an emotion. Now it's like, yes, of course you're crying, because look at the thoughts you're having and that's okay, cry out, let it go. Of course you're frustrated, you don't want to get off your game, you're loving it. I get it be frustrated for a minute and then we'll talk about it. Or, um, yes, of course you're feeling anxious because you're doing something new and your brain literally thinks this is going to kill you. It doesn't understand that. It's not. That's okay. We don't have to avoid that emotion. And and I just think, um, how I'm quite fascinated to see how, how they are impacted by hearing. Yeah, this is how you process an emotion. Nothing has gone wrong when you have them and we can, just, we can just experience it and it disappears and off we go again yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean that's such an incredible. I mean I, I'm yeah, I mean they're already amazing young men. I can't, I can't wait to that from such a young age. They're not being conditioned that anxiety is a sign to hold back like no, no, anxiety, nervousness is. It's a sign that we're growing and moving forward. Fear, that's totally normal, of course it is, you know. Sadness, absolutely, it's.
Speaker 2:None of that is a problem yeah, none of it is a problem, and I think it's like we can create so much more healthier relationships when we first allow ourselves to feel but also have the awareness of what it is we are feeling, versus blaming the other person like I always think of. Like my marriage prior to life coaching with my marriage right now is completely different relationship because for the craziest long time anytime Jeremy had a hard time, I would make him mean something about me. Yeah, I'm not good enough, I'm failing. All the thoughts None of them were his thoughts, they were my thoughts.
Speaker 2:Yeah, all the thoughts, none of them were his thoughts, they were my thoughts, yeah, and it created such a different relationship in which I was just so emotionally charged that we just argued more often than I wanted to. And now it's like okay, he's feeling a certain way. This is the thought. Granted, I'm a coach, and so I had a friend tell me how does your husband handle being married to you? I'm like what do you mean? And then he's like I just can't imagine, because every time I feel like you're looking at me, I feel like you're analyzing my brain.
Speaker 2:I'm like yeah, I'm not that powerful.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But with my husband it's just become this detached in a sense where you allow that person that you love to feel the emotions, not make it mean anything about you. Yeah, yeah. And be present for them. That has been such a gift. I can't even imagine, like, express it, and that's exactly like how it shifted. For me it's like my kids. My relationship with my girls is different my relationship with my sister, my husband and also my boyfriend. But yeah, it's so different when you allow yourself to feel and let them feel.
Speaker 1:And I think as well, to complement that it's taking that step back to your thoughts is if, if you realize you can change your thoughts about yourself, and I think this is this is something that I just get stronger and stronger at and it just feels so incredible. Is that learning how to be my best friend?
Speaker 1:learning how to be kind to myself, learning, how, like I find myself now saying, oh well done, nikki, that was a really good job. And I'm like where the hell did that come from? Never in, like five years ago, whenever I said that to myself. Yeah, but because I've started to build my relationship with me and the quality of my relationship with myself. I don't have a dependency then on my children, on my children to behave a certain way, because their behavior shows nothing about me. Like I can let my husband feel frightened or nervous or worried or whatever he's going through, and it doesn't mean anything about me. So I, when you have, when you are only ever dependent on yourself, you get to show up in such a truer yeah for me, so much more loving way, versus trying to control and change things that you have no control over, unfortunately, and then being frustrated and resentful, and that you never show up as your best self from that place yeah, it's not authentic at all, like it's just us trying to grab and fix and control situations.
Speaker 2:Uh, one of the things that I always share is the idea that when we are not kind with ourselves, we are literally not being kind to god, like because he again, he lives within us and so it's like telling, well, god, you messed this up about me. Yeah, you got this one wrong. Yeah, it's like I don't think that, like, one of the things that my clients come to me with is like those dreams that have been placed in their hearts are like well, I'm not gonna go after that because I'm not good enough, which we're basically saying that the Holy Spirit within you is not good enough to carry you through. That, to me, is just so scary to think.
Speaker 2:I'm like no, no, no we are not going to just sit and beat ourselves up, because in doing so we are beating up the creation that God fully created within you. Like you are his and he is in you. And so to me it's like let's not do that anymore and really learn to have a better relationship with ourselves, and it was also explained that too, like that, the core of our relationships is us, with God in the middle, and if we don't have a healthy relationship between us, the rest of our relationships are affected.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's just it's just how it is, but and I'm so glad that you touched on that, because I think that's also one of the biggest parts of life coaching is learning to not just accept yourself, but really learning how to love who you are and whom God is calling you to be, whom he's created you to be from the very beginning. Yeah, um, so, so yeah, I just.
Speaker 1:And what I also love about life coaching along that similar line is how, up until this point in your life, that part of your brain has been conditioned by society, by experiences, by, by caregivers, by circumstances and situations that we've had no control over, that have happened to us, so that that love has always been in us. But how, how we have been, or what we've experienced up until this point was unconscious and out of our control. And I think if there are circumstances and events that people haven't dealt with, then that might be more appropriate for counseling or therapy. But what I love about life coaching is like we're drawing a line in the sand and we're going right from this point and for the rest of my life, regardless of what's happened in this up until this point, who do I want to be moving forward?
Speaker 1:Yeah, how do I want to show up? What stories do I want to tell? Um, what do I want to create? Who do I want to be? What do I? You know, what do I want to achieve in this next part of my life? So it's life coaching for me gives you that kind of part of my life. So it's life coaching for me gives you that kind of choice about releasing the past and focusing on the future and who who you want to be now going forward.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and I think to add to that, too, is the middle piece, where you are right now.
Speaker 2:You become so much more at ease and appeased that this is where you need to be and that that, from here on out, you get to co-create the life that God is calling you to create, and I just I love that. I love that imagery, too, of like drawing the line in the sand and trusting that what is in our past is in our past. There's nothing like we need to forgive ourselves for that kind of thing and also learn to move forward on purpose. I think that's a very big part, and I had a podcast talking about the difference between life coaching and therapy, because therapy is a lot more for, like, if you have a trauma. That's what therapy is more for, whereas life coaching is not for that, but it is helping you to be more at ease, more at peace in your life. Now You're creating the life that you really want, versus continue to create unknowingly of the life that you really want, versus continue to create unknowing, unknowingly of the authority that you have.
Speaker 1:yeah, I love that so I'm curious what, um, what do you think learning like, becoming a life coach and taking up coaching? What has been the biggest impact for you has been the biggest impact for you, biggest impact?
Speaker 2:I think the biggest impact, biggest, biggest impact, is that life coaching actually helped me to grow closer to God. It was the thing that helped me to grow more in connection with him. Like I said, I've been Catholic my whole life, but I think it was when I stopped buffering my life away. Then I really had that openness of needing something way more important than food or social media or just not feeling my emotions. That, for sure, has been life changing. But I think it also, for me, life coaching opened me to dream again. I not gonna cry, um, because I was a very big dreamer in my early life and then I just stopped and just settled for what seemed normal, and I think life coaching for me has allowed me to dream again and to go after bigger things that God is very on purpose putting in my heart versus hiding.
Speaker 1:So yeah, what about you? I think it is having the magic of possibility that I literally could create whatever I wanted. Now don't get me wrong. There's a fear that comes along with that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but isn't it amazing to think like I have a choice, I get to decide yeah yeah, everything yeah, and like when you're being like again, I go back to like when there is a seed in your heart to do something. Even when it seems impossible, there's a reason why, yeah, and I love that, yeah, that's so and I just love the.
Speaker 1:for me, that unconditional love and abundance that just is available to all of us if we open ourselves up to receiving it.
Speaker 2:It just feels so good, yeah, I love it. And that's exactly what it is. It's like we just need to open up to receiving his provision and it makes me happy. And it's nikki, I can talk to you forever and ever. I don't. We have a time frame, but we have a time frame, but I just want to thank you so much for coming and I want you to share where listeners can find you share a little bit, yeah so I am very active on instagram linkedin.
Speaker 1:If you're on linkedin I'll send you my links so we can connect. I have a YouTube channel and I also have a podcast called the Working Mums podcast with Nikki Bevan. So if you kind of like hearing my voice, come and have a listen.
Speaker 2:I love your voice. Your accent is my favorite thing. I'm really happy. You are like the representation of joy every time I see. I see you anything that you post.
Speaker 1:I'm always just like yep makes sense joy.
Speaker 2:Every time I see you, anything that you post, I'm always just like yep, makes sense that you would be joyful, because you really are Such a beautiful picture of joy. I love it. I will post all the links in the description, so go check her out. She's amazing. Thank you so much for coming.
Speaker 1:Thank you for having me, I loved it.
Speaker 2:I'm going to pause and then I'll edit what I just said.