Transforming Stress into Strength with Phyllis Ginsberg

Description:

Phyllis Ginsberg, joins me to share her incredible journey from the high-pressure world of child custody evaluation to becoming an advocate for thriving beyond survival. Through her profound exploration of brain research and positive psychology, Phyllis uncovers life-changing insights about burnout and personal growth, informed by her own transformative sabbatical. Her book, "Brain Makeover," provides practical weekly readings for those seeking change, and we explore how her passion for understanding high-conflict environments informs her work on children's brain development.

Phyllis reveals through her own experiences that growing up with a sick parent can ignite a lifelong passion for health and wellness. She shares how her early life shaped her dedication to helping others understand the root causes of their behaviors, especially when trapped in cycles of people-pleasing. We discuss the societal conditioning that often leads us to neglect our own needs, and how embracing self-worth and authentic living can lead to fulfilling, value-driven lives.

Guest Bio:

With a wealth of experience as an international speaker, bestselling author, and seasoned therapist, Phyllis Ginsberg has become a catalyst for authentic change in individuals seeking to transcend mere survival and embrace a thriving existence in the face of life's challenges.

Phyllis is the author of three books: Brain Makeover, Tired and Hungry No More, and Empowered You. Her latest book, Empowered You, is a transformative guide that empowers individuals to break free from the constraints of the past and embark on a journey toward self-discovery and empowerment.

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This episode was produced by: Six-Two Studio

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Karen Sarmento is a passionate and dedicated Nurse Practitioner for more than 18 years, CEO at Sarmento Mentoring Services LLC, and a Proctor Gallagher Certified Mindset Mentor. She specializes in empowering women to tap into their true potential. She understands the unique challenges faced by women because she too has battled some major challenges in her life. Karen does not let that define her; she believes it’s the challenges that have made her the limitless woman she is today. She whole-heartedly believes we hold all the power within and that we should stand tall together in the pursuit of greatness.

Karen has served thousands over the course of her career and has spent many years studying directly with world class mentors to gain a deep understanding of the science behind human behaviour and learning about the success principals that create lasting change and transformation. She will share her insights with you so you can feel unstoppable and limitless too.

Find Karen:
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Transcript

Karen Sarmento:

0:01

Have you ever felt that inner whisper nudging you towards something greater? We truly are a force of nature possessing our own incredible power within. We are all here to identify our own personal definition of success. We all have a story to tell. Join me as I dive into empowering concepts and have powerful conversations with extraordinary humans who have shattered limitations, overcome adversity and created remarkable success. I'm your host, aren Sarmento, and we are meant for more, and we are meant for more. Hello and welcome to another episode of we Are Meant For More. Today, I have the absolute honor and privilege of bringing to you Phyllis Ginsberg. Welcome, phyllis.

Phyllis Ginsberg:

1:04

Hi Karen, Thank you so much for having me.

Karen Sarmento:

1:07

Such is our pleasure. I'm really excited for this, me too. So let me tell the audience a little bit about you, because I feel like you have so much to share with us and it's really impressive all that you've accomplished with your work. So Phyllis comes to us. Let me put on my glasses. Phyllis comes to us with a wealth of experience as an international speaker, best-selling author and seasoned therapist. Phyllis has become a catalyst for authentic change in an individual seeking to transcend mere survival and embrace a thriving existence in the face of life's challenges. You're the author of three books Brain Makeover, tired and Hungry no More, and your most recent book Empowered you, and they're all fascinating and so helpful, with very just, stepwise things that people can really apply to their lives. So you're a therapist, but life circumstances and your own experience, with a little bit of burnout and just life, took your practice in a little bit of a different trajectory. Tell us a little bit about you and your journey.

Phyllis Ginsberg:

2:24

Sure, I'd be happy to so back. Well, 2005 is about the time where I needed a break. I said yes to way too much work, and when I say work, most people, when they think of the work I was doing, wonder how I did it. I was a child custody evaluator, doing co-parenting, mediations, special masterwork, reunification of kids and parents, anything and everything the courts would order people to do for high conflict divorce. I did, and I was really good at it, and I said yes to way too many things and I lost myself.

Phyllis Ginsberg:

3:08

So, 2005, I had this moment where I decided I need a break, and so what I did was took a sabbatical. My goal was to take some time off and then figure out do I go back to work? Maybe I go back, you know, doing less of it, because that model wasn't working very well for me and I don't know if any of you have experienced where you're a little crispy on the edges and a little irritable and maybe your body doesn't feel so good and you're exhausted all the time. And you know, some of those signs are real and we can't sustain that.

Phyllis Ginsberg:

3:49

So when I took time off, I still continued going to the classes that I needed for continuing education and one of them was on domestic violence because I needed, you know, extra hours as a custody evaluator for the state of California and they brought in a brain researcher who showed us scans of kids' brains that grow up in high conflict divorce families and there was something that happened in my brain like I had a light bulb moment. It's like okay, this is incredible research and there's a lot of great research, brain research. That was, you know, like we're talking almost 20 years ago. That was just coming on the forefront. So I immersed myself in brain research, positive psychology, and I wrote my first book, brain Makeover, by blogging on healthy, healthy Mind was my Monday topic.

Karen Sarmento:

4:47

Okay, so that led you to the first book, brain Makeover. What does that book teach us about, or what will the listeners get from that book?

Phyllis Ginsberg:

4:57

The Brain Makeover started out as a blog. As a blog, and remember, like I was coming out of this burnout phase, so I would write like maybe two or three paragraphs. It was short and sweet and I had no idea, like the depth and the wisdom of where this would go. I'm just like, okay, I feel inspired to do this, so I'm going to do it. I had no idea if I'd like being an author, if I was going to make a difference, like I was not really invested in an outcome, I was just like healing myself along the way and sharing things with others. And so there's 52 weekly readings that are about two pages each.

Phyllis Ginsberg:

5:47

So anybody whether you're dealing with burnout and illness, a busy lifestyle, it doesn't matter Most of us can put aside enough time to read two pages a week, absolutely Right. And with that, brain Makeover is like a quasi workbook. So not only are you going to read about something that you can either do differently, get a new perspective, think a little bit differently but also put it into action. So you'll see, there's like a sentence, a line, something where you can either write something or check off. Yes, I did that, super easy. But powerful.

Karen Sarmento:

6:32

I love that, so it's like a practical guide somebody can easily do with little time, not expensive, and then you can even do the check off so that you actually acknowledge yourself for doing it. There's something in that acknowledgement. I wanted to back up to something that you had just said, when you mentioned the studies on the brains of children that had been exposed to high conflict or high intensity divorces. What did they find with those children, right?

Phyllis Ginsberg:

7:03

There's a difference in the brain scans of a child who grows up in a, let's say, a calmer I'm going to say safe, secure family. They will have their squabbles but it's not high conflict where on a lot of these families they had police involvement, they had CPS, domestic violence, substance abuse, allegations up to here. So we're talking really high intensity of conflict and accusations and there's areas in the brain that look. I mean on the scans they had different colors and I didn't know enough about the brain and I'm not a brain like, I'm not a brain researcher.

Phyllis Ginsberg:

7:53

I've studied brain research enough to put the psychology together with positive psychology and brain research to know that, like our brains, the way they function, for example, we we tend to think in pictures, right? So if I say, think of a pink heart, you probably imagine it, right, you can see one. But when we're thinking a pink heart or if we're visualizing a picture of one, your brain doesn't know the difference, whether it's real or imagined. And that's for everything which is significant. When you're either going down the case of worst case scenario, thinking, imagining the worst, your brain thinks that you're experiencing it. That's not good, that's being in survival mode and igniting the fight or flight response. Being in a high amount of stress hormones and having those kinds of hormones in our body lowers our immune system, compromises our digestion, our thinking. That's becoming more common knowledge now the effects on the body but no one was really talking about that 20 years ago.

Karen Sarmento:

9:10

Right. So that's so fascinating because what it leads me to think about is the fact that if we're aware of the impact all that has on us, then we can also change that yes, moving forward with our thoughts Exactly, and that's what Brain Makeover does is it introduces new ways of thinking, and you don't even have to read the whole book.

Phyllis Ginsberg:

9:37

You could open it to any weekly reading or you can follow from the beginning and gain some benefits along the way.

Karen Sarmento:

9:46

It's like we're interrupting the pattern of what we're used to or what we've been exposed to since we were children.

Phyllis Ginsberg:

9:54

Right, because we just do what we were taught, what was expected of us. Our brains are miraculous. They are so efficient that we function on autopilot like 95 plus percent of the time. But the danger in that is there's a whole lot of stuff that we do without thinking, and if you're doing that kind of thinking, feeling and behaving that really wasn't yours, you didn't choose it, you were just raised with it, that's where you can look at and say okay, is this how I want to continue living?

Karen Sarmento:

10:33

Yeah, I love that you discussed some of the signs that were letting you know that maybe something needed to change, that you're getting a little crisp on the edges and a little irritable, and so often we just continue on the status quo and just keep doing what we've always done and don't question it. So what would you say to the listeners who are starting to right now say geez, you know, maybe that's me, maybe I'm a little irritable and crisp on the edges and maybe my life is not quite how I want it to be? Where do you even suggest that they start when they was a person? One of our listeners may want to make a change or recognize something. I don't know, this isn't quite my life.

Phyllis Ginsberg:

11:22

Yeah, I think that even for, let's say, people who aren't traumatized you know we're not talking big traumas when I look at even throughout my life, we all go through transitions and it feels like, you know, I'm on the brink of another transition, of something. It's like, okay, I'm ready for a new experience. You could be feeling a little burnt out, a lot burnt out. You could be feeling bored with your life, right, so it could be any of those, and the most important thing would be to recognize that you're dissatisfied. So that dissatisfaction, the inability to achieve what you want, whether it's feeling better, having the kind of job or work experience and work satisfaction, a relationship that's like, oh, this is just too hard, it's not working, we don't seem to be on the same page. Anything that doesn't feel right could use some intervention of some kind. And before you go out trying to figure out, ok, do we need serious help? Maybe not. It could be as much as changing a thought, a belief, a feeling or a perspective.

Karen Sarmento:

12:39

It's so powerful what you can do with the mind and with your thoughts and just having some awareness of your thoughts and what, how you're moving through life. So when clients come to you and they just there, you feel like they're just looking for a change. It doesn't feel like a big trauma, they're not coming with something like that. What do you ask them to do? Where do you suggest? What are their first steps?

Phyllis Ginsberg:

13:07

Well, I like to look at what their experience is and the message that they got growing up, because anybody who's got it I don't care what problem you have, whether it's with your money, with your relationship, with your health you got some messages about those subjects growing up and they set the tone for your life, and if you're not aware of them, you're just going to be doing what's familiar until you have some awareness.

Karen Sarmento:

13:43

Right, and that's what we know, and that's what's comfortable, and it isn't comfortable to question. Well, that's what we've always done. So it's uncomfortable to question or even to potentially try doing in another way.

Phyllis Ginsberg:

13:57

And it may be that you don't even consider that. You know I look at like health is a great example. Well, I've got this chronic something. I just can't get rid of it. But did you know that health issues have an emotional component and the CDC website actually says 85% of all illnesses have an emotional component?

Karen Sarmento:

14:23

Oh my gosh, I love that that's actually being acknowledged.

Phyllis Ginsberg:

14:28

And so I can work with somebody on that level and deal with the emotional pieces that can then shift symptoms. And it's incredible. But most of us think, oh, I'm not doing well, I must have injured myself, I picked up a germ, it could be my diet, I haven't exercised. But there's so many other pieces that most people aren't aware of.

Karen Sarmento:

14:55

It's not on our radar because we weren't taught this, that is so powerful about your thoughts and emotions being linked to health and aches and pains and not being treated with a pill. So is that what your second book alluded to or discussed more Right?

Phyllis Ginsberg:

15:14

Tired and Hungry no More. I wrote that based on two things. One is my dad had a stroke, I was coming back from visiting him, I was on a flight and while I was on the airplane I got this intuitive message like it's time to write that book. So, when I was blogging, during my sabbatical, I blogged five days a week. So while Monday was healthy mind and that became brain makeover, tuesday, wednesday, wednesday, thursday and Friday had to do with healthy, healthy body, healthy eating, family fun.

Phyllis Ginsberg:

15:52

Oh, I'm missing one of them, but you get the idea. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And so so it's a lifestyle book, because what most people don't recognize and I'm hoping that now here we are at 2024, that a lot of people will recognize that our lifestyle choices do make a difference how we think, what we eat, the amount of movement or lack of movement, like if we get quality sleep, if we're hydrated or dehydrated these are basic things that if we let go for too long, we're going to experience some kind of distress in our body. And the real reason why I have such a passion for health is because my mom was not very healthy, so before she even had my sister and I, she had migraine, headaches and arthritis. She then didn't take care of herself. In hindsight I could see where, emotionally, she was not doing very well, and by age 36, she had breast cancer and died within a year. Oh, my goodness, yes.

Karen Sarmento:

17:05

So, sorry.

Phyllis Ginsberg:

17:07

Yeah, so that left an impact To have a mom go through that, and that's my childhood. I was the I don't know, you might say overly responsible one, the parent of the house, the one that was taking care of her, rather than her taking care of me Cooking, cleaning, like doing things that kids shouldn't have to do but it prepared me to do the work I do, and so I don't have I don't have any regrets or I'm not angry about it. I've processed a lot of, a lot of work around this to be able to get to this point to say, wow, these could be gifts for me to share with other people, so that if you went through something like that that were relatable and you can see like, okay, I came out of it, it's possible, and it's possible for you too.

Karen Sarmento:

18:03

Yes, I'm a complete believer in that. What at one time may have made us feel small or even weak, or I call it my dark time, it actually qualified me to now help somebody else who may be in that same place. So I too don't have any regret or resentment. I always feel like those times they teach us something or we come out stronger. When you meet somebody who is in that place where they're either feeling burnt out or they're a people pleaser and they're just constantly giving of themselves, to the point they've got nothing left to give, but they're still trying to give. They're pretty much empty inside. How do you empower them to make a move Because they're already feeling drained? Empower them to make a move because they're already feeling drained. They can't see a way out. What does that person do?

Phyllis Ginsberg:

18:53

There's a lot of reasons why somebody does what they do, and I love getting to the root cause. So if one of the reasons is you're looking for the acknowledgement that you didn't get growing up, you're going to be seeking that out the rest of your life if you don't recognize what you're doing and why you're doing it. So to identify why someone does something could be really valuable. The other piece that I like to assess for is how do they think of themselves? What kind of view do they have of themselves? The self-image, the ability to put themselves maybe not first but not last, like where right, where on there do you allow yourself to say I matter, my sleep matters, my health matters, I have just as much right to exist as someone else?

Phyllis Ginsberg:

19:52

These are like really important pieces because, remember, we grow up and we're conditioned to be agreeable, right, right. So if we're conditioned to fit in socially, to fit into a family, to maybe not cause our parents so much distress, how they go about that could be through rewards, through punishments, threats, could be through love, but most people I work with definitely didn't get a loving childhood that allowed them to be who they are and to honor their own needs, right, and that's a huge piece that adults are missing, because when you turn 18, it's not like, oh good, I get to now do what I want for me. No, you're in survival mode. You got to go out there, find how you're going to support yourself in a career or an education, because your parents don't want you living with with them forever. Like that's not how how the system set up.

Karen Sarmento:

20:58

Right, and we were brought up almost to put ourselves last. It was always oh no, you go, no, you take it. You take it. No, I don't need it. No, thank you. And there it all began. So then, as you said, you turn 18, you go on your own. So now you're struggling with the world, but you're also me speaking for myself only a people pleaser. So you're trying to please everybody. You're trying to survive. So you're trying to please everybody. You're trying to survive. So it's amazing how you take all that with you.

Phyllis Ginsberg:

21:35

It's so interesting. Most people pleasers started out they learn this so well pleasing their parents.

Karen Sarmento:

21:42

Yeah, the good one, the good girl, she's the quiet one, she's the good one, yeah. And people pleasers do not do well with conflict oh no, no, because if somebody is, may not like them, and people pleasers don't like to not be liked and then we don't learn how to deal with competing needs.

Phyllis Ginsberg:

22:04

So there's a lot of things we did not learn.

Karen Sarmento:

22:08

So interesting and we didn't learn that it was okay to matter and that you know, self-love is a more recent thing that we talk about, but I've heard you speak about self-love and you do that so well, but we weren't taught to love ourselves.

Phyllis Ginsberg:

22:24

No, in fact, I think we were taught the opposite. I've worked with so many women that say I got punished for attracting attention to myself and it wasn't okay to have needs or wants like share with your brothers and sisters, make sure they're okay. All the messages that we got that we're selfish if we focus on ourselves and I tell adults you have to take care of you because no one else is going to do it for you.

Karen Sarmento:

22:55

It's just fascinating.

Phyllis Ginsberg:

23:02

How do you define self-love? To take care of our basic needs and then to grow into honoring our gifts and talents so that we can share them with others. And I think the most loving thing we can do for ourselves is to figure out how to be ourselves and not be who other people expected us to be.

Karen Sarmento:

23:27

That's really powerful. And when you show up as that authentic version of yourself, everything's in alignment. So your thoughts are in alignment with how you're showing up in the world and that feels good. Because it doesn't feel good when you're thinking one thing but you're not doing it because that might upset this person or somebody is not going to be happy or it's just unusual behavior that nobody would expect from you, so you don't do it, and then it all gets suppressed and now there's chaos in the mind and yeah, it's really, it's really amazing. I try so hard as a mom to be careful of some of the things I say to my son because I don't want it to be down the road. I've created that generational oh gosh. Dysfunction in his mind and certainly nobody ever realizes or does it and they're not doing it intentionally. But it's really, it's really powerful.

Phyllis Ginsberg:

24:27

It is, and this has been going on for eons. So don't feel bad, because we don't know what's in the subconscious, it's there in the archives and you might not know, but one day you might, you know. Like look in the mirror and it's like wow, I'm starting to look like my mom or dad or sound like them. Right, you say something to your child like oh, that's what my parents said to me. I have become my parent.

Karen Sarmento:

24:57

It has happened, I have caught myself. Yeah, that is funny.

Phyllis Ginsberg:

25:02

But the good thing is, the first step to any change is to recognize it. So once you can recognize oh, I did that, I don't want to do that Now. Now that you have that information, now is the time to figure out how do I replace it, what do I do differently, and then you can do something differently on purpose.

Karen Sarmento:

25:25

On purpose. I love that. Yes, With intention. I don't know if you know the answer to this, but how long do you think it takes to, once you've kind of interrupted the pattern and kind of put new thoughts into the subconscious mind? How long do you think it takes to break a habit or to break a thought, a negative thought process?

Phyllis Ginsberg:

25:51

I would say it depends on how ready you are, because research has shown it used to be 21 days or 28 days to break a habit or a pattern. It's now 66 days, plus that research. I got it's in, tired and Hungry, no More more. But I have people in an instant could shift something because they were so ready. I've had other people who've had so much resistance and fear to the unknown or to being different that there's people I've worked with for several years they're making great progress in certain areas of their life, but there's still some that's like oh no, we can't go there yet or they're just not ready. It doesn't feel safe, something and taking a risk or a leap of faith, that showing up, especially to family, with some different boundaries, language, different values, that's scary for a lot of people.

Karen Sarmento:

27:01

Yeah, sure, that is scary and it's uncomfortable.

Phyllis Ginsberg:

27:07

You don't know if you will still be accepted and part of the tribe, right? And that's one of those generational things that if you weren't part of a tribe, you were alone. You most likely would not survive in the wild. Even though it doesn't look like we're pack animals or that, we have this need for connection on a daily basis, like, oh, I'm fine by myself, I don't need anybody, right? A lot of us can say that, which goes into a whole other thing. But when we have that thought, but we're now faced with oh, but I can't really be myself because I will be disowned, it taps into some ancient, familiar, it's not safe type of thinking, and that's something that can be worked with. But is it safe to do what I want to do? I often will ask clients.

Karen Sarmento:

28:05

You will ask them directly if they feel safe to make that change.

Phyllis Ginsberg:

28:10

Yeah, very interesting and even growing professionally or business-wise? Is it safe to take on more business? Is it safe to have a bigger personality, be out there more, have more exposure, be more vulnerable, more vulnerable All of that. You could be going up against some really old beliefs of it's not okay to surpass my siblings or my parents. How will I be perceived? My friends might not relate to me, they might be jealous or envious. Comes with a whole lot of territory.

Karen Sarmento:

28:47

It sure does, comes with a whole lot of territory, it sure does. And sometimes, as you grow and expand and make the decision to do things differently and say, yes, it's worth it. I feel safe to make these changes and I'm going to take the risk. Some people do kind of just fall off the grid and fall out of your circle, gracefully or naturally, or sometimes uncomfortably. Yeah, change in general is scary and uncomfortable.

Phyllis Ginsberg:

29:18

Well, it is, and there is nothing more that a human being experiences than change every single day. So I'm not sure where we. Where did we go to the expectation that we just want things to remain the same, because something that's familiar we think keeps us safe? But I think it's a false sense of safety.

Karen Sarmento:

29:46

I think that is the most powerful thing that I've heard in a long time. We think what is safe is not changing and staying just as we are because it's familiar. But without change we're not growing. And to me that is just really powerful right there, recognizing it's only because it's familiar that we don't want anything to change, it's only because it's familiar that we don't want anything to change.

Phyllis Ginsberg:

30:10

But the most significant piece, I think and the people who survive life the longest are learn to adapt that I would venture to guess the happiest people are those who didn't always succeed. They may have had some failures along the way, they may have had a lot of ups and downs, but they figured out how to adapt. And when you know how to adapt and you, it's like surfing I've never surfed, but you watch those waves. And it's like if you figure out how to ride the waves, when to be in the water and when not, now you're making some choices and using discernment and you're more in control of not being at the whim of what happens or worried about what other people think, which is so freeing.

Karen Sarmento:

31:02

I've heard you describe mental resilience and the characteristics of somebody that tends to be mentally resilient. How would you describe that person?

Phyllis Ginsberg:

31:14

So there are four characteristics of mental resilience that I put in my book Empowered you, and the first characteristic is happy. People who are mentally resilient tend to be happy, and that's important, because if you're not happy, that means that you're dealing with some other emotional distress, perhaps anxiety, stress in general, having a difficult time coping with something. So being happy is one Flexible the characteristic of flexibility. So that's part of adapting when something doesn't work out the way you want it to, to be able to look at it and say, oh okay, so that didn't go the way I thought it would, and now it's time to pivot, to do something else. Or oh, now there's an opportunity for something else to happen.

Karen Sarmento:

32:10

I love it. I heard somebody the other day on that topic and I don't know where it came from, but they said in a similar scenario oh, plot twist, this is exciting. So they immediately saw it as an opportunity to go where the new experience was taking them.

Phyllis Ginsberg:

32:26

Which leads me to the third characteristic, which is optimism. Yes, right, so people who are more resilient tend to be more optimistic. They will look at something and lean toward the positive. So that didn't work out. I bet you there's a better way to do this or there's a better solution. Here there's going to be a better outcome and not getting stuck in one particular scenario that you think has to be the way. And then the fourth one is patience. And if we don't have patience, we tend to try and push and force and control, and those don't work very well. But when we're patient and we allow things to unfold, we do our research or we look at a situation with careful thought before we make a decision, we take a moment to breathe, we tune in like does this feel right? Instead of reacting, we're now choosing how we act.

Karen Sarmento:

33:37

Yeah, that ability to detach sort of from the outcome and let things unfold, that's amazing. This is so powerful. Your work is just really really life changing. Are there any things that I haven't touched upon or brought up that you think are important for the audience to hear or that they'd really benefit from?

Phyllis Ginsberg:

34:00

Well, I think, on top of the resilience characteristics, to go back to how we can most feel empowered would be to first recognize what our situation is, have some awareness, and I'm talking about recognizing the patterns that got you there. So the more that we can get drilled down to the source of what's going on, which is going to be patterns. It's not person specific, it's my mom did this, my dad did that, my brother, my sister. No, what we tend to do is recreate patterns throughout our life. So if you have the same kind of patterns happening, whether it's financially, or you attract the same types of people in your life, relationships, job, history, those are red flags.

Phyllis Ginsberg:

34:51

And then learn to interrupt the patterns and to replace disempowering thoughts and self-talk. So there's a whole bunch of examples in the book Empowered you. But one way to interrupt a pattern would be if you're having thoughts that you don't want to think or your self-talk is not very favorable, you can say, okay, stop time out, we're not doing this anymore, and you can choose something that's the opposite. You could even take a moment and go for a walk, look at something, whether it's on the wall or outside, like some beauty, something that's going to shift a thought. The goal is to interrupt your thinking, get a little break from it and then to develop a better view of yourself as someone who you want to be, rather than the conditioned self that you grew up to be with all the generational programming, develop the person you would want to be.

Phyllis Ginsberg:

35:57

And that's our job. No one else is going to do that for us. If we want to have some changes in our life, it's up to us to seek out how to go about doing that. And it's possible oh, it's more than possible. When we embrace our empowered selves to be more of who we are at our essence, rather than the way that we were programmed and conditioned growing up. It is freeing, it's exciting, it's adventurous. We get to do the things that we love to do, share our passions with others. Otherwise we're kind of dead inside. We have to suppress our feelings, our thoughts. We got to do what we're told to do. We grew up with that. Do we want to live our whole lives doing that? Probably not.

Karen Sarmento:

36:43

I always say it's kind of like a process of unbecoming all the things we became that everybody else kind of thought we should be, so we did. It's exactly, and as you said, very freeing. Oftentimes some of my clients they don't even know anymore what lights them up. They don't even know what they like to do or what it is that is interesting to them at all.

Phyllis Ginsberg:

37:05

That is so common, given the way that most of us were raised.

Karen Sarmento:

37:11

This has been so profound, so interesting and I know so many people are going to learn from this. It's such an eye opener to just step back and realize that you can change your reality.

Phyllis Ginsberg:

37:25

Two things doesn't have to be difficult and it doesn't have to take a long time.

Karen Sarmento:

37:31

That's beautiful right there for people to hear. It doesn't have to feel overwhelming, and then people like yourself that can guide you through a process like this. So, aside from people purchasing your book, which I highly recommend because they're easy reads they're easy to read, they're not, it's not overwhelming, and they're very practical, with steps and little stories and empowered you that I could so relate to. So Brain Makeover, empowered you and Tired and Hungry no More. Yes, highly recommend. And where can people find you?

Phyllis Ginsberg:

38:11

They can find me at my website, phyllisginsbergcom, and then my books are available wherever books are sold.

Karen Sarmento:

38:19

Wonderful, and all that information as well will be in the show notes for everybody to reach out to you, and you also provided a little gift for everybody. Tell us about that.

Phyllis Ginsberg:

38:31

So it's called 10 self views that determine your likelihood of success, and there's five ways that we view ourselves that are unfavorable and five that are favorable. And just by reading this little I don't know we call I call it a guide. It's just a few pages long You'll get a flavor for something that you can look at and say, ah, this resonates with me. Oh yeah, I'm doing that. And you can now shift to one of the other views of yourself. Because if we don't change the view of ourself, we can say affirmations all day long, we can wish and hope and dream, but until we really integrate the self-view that's going to be our future self, we'll continue to do what's familiar.

Karen Sarmento:

39:22

Thank you so much. That's going to be very eye-opening for many people, I'm sure.

Phyllis Ginsberg:

39:26

Oh, you're welcome.

Karen Sarmento:

39:27

Yes, and thank you so much for being here. I meet so much powerful information. I'm so happy you took the time to be here and I feel honored that you shared your time and all your wisdom with everyone.

Phyllis Ginsberg:

39:40

I appreciate the invitation and I hope that several people benefit from this. That's why I do what I do.

Karen Sarmento:

39:47

Yeah, I can tell you're very passionate about it and that you love what you do. Well, thank you to everybody for being here and for another episode of we Are Meant For More. And if there's anybody you feel would benefit from this episode, please don't hesitate to share it. And again, thank you, Phyllis, for being here. Thank you, Remember. Whatever challenges you're facing or have faced in the past, they don't define you. You are worthy, capable and destined for greatness. Let's embrace the whispers of possibility together, Because together we rise and we are meant for more.

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