The first performance Belief Coder - Lisa Lawton

From a background in social work, psychotherapy and of course performing, Lisa Lawton is the first Belief Coder in the performance space helping so many achieve their potentials. She's performed in Les Mis, entertained hundreds of thousands as a guest entertainer on cruise liners for years but more importantly than her career, she's a woman who has had to get back up fighting time and time again when life has hit her hard. Lisa's story is a special one and it was my pleasure to have her on The Connect Cast.

Thank you Lisa 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:14

How do I actually help that no matter what situation in my find yourself in the okay? What is going on? Lisa, it's an absolute pleasure to have you here on the Catcast. We've wanted to do this for so long, months, if not years, actually. How long have we been talking about this? Too long, too long. So it's amazing to have you here in the studio. Um, but for anybody who doesn't know you, um, I obviously know you from performing through the acting network, through singing. Um, you were my singing teacher and also my careers coach as well. Well, not just careers, my coach and life coach, really, for a period of time. And now you are a belief coder. So talk to us, where are you at now? What is the life of Lisa Lawton? Where are you up to now? The life of Lisa Lawton, it has many, many faces. Um where I'm at now is actually probably the most peaceful and happiest place I've ever been, which is which is really nice. I am still performing. Um, I've got a couple of cruise contracts coming up, so I'm still headlining on cruises. Um, but that seems to be naturally taking a bit more of a backseat because about 12 months ago I found this amazing modality called relief coding. I'd heard of the body code and the emotion code because I've always been in the personal development space from being about 18. I've always been really interested in understanding why people do what they do. When I was in my early 30s, I trained as a life coach. Um, so my career has been a crossover of psychology, social work, and music. I'm at the point now where I've sort of gone full circle and belief coding um came into my awareness. And I mentioned me being a life coach sort of in my early 30s because I wrote I wrote a course called Believe and Achieve, because I really firmly knew in my core and believed that you will never outperform the beliefs you've got about yourself. You know, if you believe that you can't do something, you'll prove yourself right. If you believe that you can do something, you'll take steps towards it. You know, you might be nervous about it, but you'll definitely go for it. And there are so many things that affect the way we think about ourselves, feel about ourselves, and the things we believe about ourselves. At the time when I was doing life coaching, um, I was just really passionate about making a difference or supporting people and making a helping them make a difference in their own lives to live the best life they could. So when I saw belief coding, I'd I'd hit an all-time low in my in my in my journey. Um, and everybody's journey has its peaks and troughs, but mine seems to have had quite a few troughs. Um but I think it's not so much the trough, is it? It's the learning you get from it and how you get back up. And um, just before belief code, I found belief coding, and I will obviously explain a bit more about it. My grandma passed away, and she was like, well, she was everything to me. She was like a mother, she was my best friend. She was my mum, who I adore, was very young when she had me. She was only 17 back in the 70s, and it was, you know, she she was a young 17 as well. And I'm really grateful my grandma was there, my grandfather. Um, and my grandma basically took care of me while my mum went and did a nurse training. So I've had a very close bond with my grandma because I lived with her and my granddad and my mum and my uncle in the same house till I was seven. So my grandma was my world, and my grandfather sadly passed away when he was very young. He was only like 59, going on, just turning 60. So she had 35 years without him. Um, and we all had that time without him, without him. Um and when she passed, it was probably one of the biggest things I'd always worried about my whole life. What would I do without her? Which again what direction would you turn in? Yeah, and and and also makes me realise that you know you have you you you you can't live your life worrying about the what ifs and and how will I cope and what will I do? And because these things come around and hit you in the face, and you've got two choices, you either sink or swim. You know, you let it, you let the grief overwhelm you, I guess, or you try and reframe it and look at it in a in a positive light, like you know, look at all the years I had with her. I mean, to still be, you know, to be 54 and still have your grandma is pretty good. You know, some people don't have the mothers at that age because things happen. Um, but it was a long time to have her around and it was a lot, a lot to lose. So when she passed, uh and it and it happened quite quickly, um, because even though she was 95, she had leukemia, and it just all seemed to happen really fast. She just went downhill really quickly. Um, but just before that, um I'm very fortunate that I sing with a couple of big bands, jazz orchestras, and Manchester Jazz Orchestra was formed by um Paul Phillips, who's a really good friend of mine, he's also the MD of um Sperban Swing Orchestra, and Pete Twist, um, who's quite young, only only in his uh early 20s, set you know, when I knew him. But um he set up Manchester Jazz Orchestra then with Paul, and he was probably in his late 20s at that point. But a year prior to my grandma's death, he was diagnosed with a really rare form of cancer. And unfortunately, it it took him, it took a hold of him and he passed away and he was he was 30. And um that was just before my grandma's. So, in a long-winded answer, um, where I'm at now and where I was at before belief coding, is I was really, really in grief-stricken, I guess. And as you know, as a performer, when you're in that amount of emotional pain, um, it's very difficult to get up and sing and perform and put on a you know a happy face. Um I had a cruise contract that I didn't do, and my agent was amazing, and you know, she said, obviously, you know, your grandma's just he's really ill. I just said I can't come on this next contract. Um, I didn't do any real work that Christmas I did a little bit. Um and then I in the January, I think belief coding came into my feed and I just looked at it and thought, this looks amazing. Um and I'd I've never really looked back since because I'd written Believe and Achieve previously, and it did so well and helped quite a lot of people at the time, particularly women, um, start to believe in themselves and their own capabilities through the exercises that I took them through. And it's thought-provoking, you know. You might not have you might not have been asked certain questions before that made you think a bit deeper about yourself and who you are and why you think you are who you are, where you've learned that from. Um, belief coding seemed to speak to all of that, but it was very powerful in that it made you think what are the subconscious patterns that are that are making me do the things I do on a daily basis. So you and I one definitely want to go back as well because I know you've talked about the grief from your grandma, losing your grandma there, blaster. Um, but you've actually been through so much prior to that as well. And I definitely want to get back into that as well because you're probably one of the most resilient people that I know. Um but centering around belief coding, yeah. You are one of the first belief coders to work with performers now. Yes. What is belief coding? Belief coding is a way of working with people that helps the person understand why they do what they do, but more importantly, the subconscious blocks that prevent them from being where they want to be in life or who they want to be in life, or should I say, if they've got a particular discomfort. So it's a way of helping someone understand that the thoughts that they think then impact the way they feel, which will impact behaviour. So it's a blend of neuroscience and spirituality and a bit of kinesiology because we have in it what's called the human compass, where basically the body will tell you what's going on faster than your conscious mind will. It'll give you the answer, and it's absolutely amazing when you try it. It's it's it's kinesiology is like the muscle testing where if you are telling a lie, the muscle loses its strength. If you're telling the truth and you've got conviction in what you're saying, your muscles you know will exhibit more strength, basically. So the human compass, I will explain that a little bit more. But what belief coding does is it helps the person go back to the original, the original discomfort and where they first felt that discomfort or trauma. So it might be something as basic as you stood up in in class and you were asked a question and you couldn't get the answer out, and everybody laughed, or you said the wrong thing, and everybody laughed. That will then make that person go very small, and their survival instinct will kick in. The brain will want to keep that person safe because we're hardwired for safety. It's our, you know, it's the way we're made, basically. So belief coding very much looks at neuro the neurology of how we work and will always find the beliefs that you've got about yourself that are keeping you safe and keeping you small, and perhaps keeping you stuck in what's called a subconscious cage. So if you're then presented with an opportunity, say, in your teens, but you it involves standing up and speaking, your nervous system will be will put the brakes on and go, absolutely not. I need to keep Lisa safe. I don't want to laugh in that again. It's it's our primal instincts because we don't want anything that's gonna basically cause our death in a way, which is very um dramatic, but we've still got the primal instincts that we had when we were running around escaping from sabre-toothed tigers and you know, the the you know, dangers from another group of people, for example, that we didn't know. But we're living in a modern society where that saber-toothed tiger might be getting laughed at in class, it might be getting an email that you really didn't want to get, and we make associations in our mind to it. So, what belief coding does is it goes to the root of the problem of when and where that was created and basically changes it, rewires it by giving the person what they needed at the time. And so a new belief is formed, i.e., standing up and speaking is liberating, it's not scary. So, you know, I am capable of speaking in front of people rather than, you know, when I when I speak in public, I I can't I can't control my nerves and I just fluff what I'm saying. And you'll have all these, you know, we think 60,000 things a day and and something ridiculous, like 50,000 of them are they're on repeat. So it's like groundhog day going through your own mind. And what belief coding does, which I love, is it gets you to really think about what the quality of your thoughts are, what the quality of your beliefs are, and how that's affecting your quality of life. And as a performer that suffered, I suffered with chronic stage fright, but I had this massive talent, had still got it, it's still in there. But it would really stifle me, it would prevent me from doing what I loved. Um, because you know, and and I realize now it was my thought processes that were based on um something that happened in my childhood that made my nervous system go, whoa, she can't do that. That's that's gonna expose her, that's gonna make her not feel safe. So my greatest passion and pleasure was also my greatest pain. And we'll do more to avoid pain than we will to necessarily go for pleasure. So I loved performing, but I hated it at the same time because it I felt I didn't feel safe. And through belief coding, I understood why I didn't feel safe because it helped me go right back. Because when you're working with someone, you get them into such a relaxed state, because although it's neuroscience based in understanding the way the brain works and how we're hardwired for survival, and our survival instincts will always be stronger than anything else. Yeah, we'll seek safety before we'll seek love. It's it's it's part of who we are. So if you think about putting yourself on a stage and exposing yourself to the opinions of other people or even on social media, you know, it can create quite a bit of anxiety in the system, which is natural, but it can get to a point where it stops you from doing what you want to do. And for me, belief coding helped me understand the things I was thinking and the patterns I'd created that just become hardwired in the brain. It's like a well-trodden path that I associated singing certain things with, oh god, that's that's gonna go wrong because my voice cracked once, for example. Yeah, so I always had this hang up that if I go for that note, it's not gonna come out. Although 99 times out of a hundred I hit the note, it's that one time that I bloody cracked that I remember because we're hardwired for safety. So my little bass go, you know. But the more you practice the the you know, undoing that habit and and strengthening that new belief, the repetition of the new belief. It's yeah, you just basically conquer it in a way. But I guess you can go in to the say you say the original discomfort of um feeling nervous when you perform in front of someone or standing up on stage was attached to, like I said earlier, being laughed at at school, either by your peers or by the teacher, or being told off, so you were humiliated in a way in public. Your nervous system is not going to want you to stand up in public, it's gonna want to protect you to keep you safe, and it's doing its job, but it's also getting on your nerves at the same time because you're thinking, hang on a minute, I want to really want to go for it. But my my my you know, my my brain chemistry, my emotions, and everything just washes over me, and I can't do it. So, what belief coding does is enables you to go back to that memory. I then as a facilitator will say to you, Tash, so tell Tasha that in that memory, in that moment, I'll be saying something like tell Tasha, aged eight, can you see her? And you'll say, Yeah, I can see her, okay. Are you hurt or are you looking at the memory? And this is in a state of semi-hypnosis. No, I I wouldn't say that. I'd say that you're very relaxed and very grounded in that you're aware of being in your body, you're aware of the space that you're in, but you're so relaxed that your subconscious will feel safe enough to give you anything that you need to work you through. It will it will it will only give you what it's safe to heal. But if as a practitioner, as a facilitator, you create that calm in the environment that you're in with a client, and you create that safe space, that nervous system's gonna come out and go, okay, I think this might be alright, you know, because again, it's gotta feel safe. And you know, as practitioners, you're gonna bring your own spin to it. Like this, I've got friends in the community that are sound healers, psychotherapists, teachers, ex-social workers, or even people that have never done anything like that before. You're gonna bring your uniqueness into that space. And I bring my music and I bring, you know, my previous experience in social work in there to know that you know you need to have unconditional positive regard for the person that you sat in front of and let them know that this is confidential, this is a safe arena, and whatever comes out, it's okay. I I can hold that space for you. And you mentioned previously about a subconscious cage. Yeah. Have you yourself been in a subconscious cage before? Yeah, I think I've been well, we're all in them, but I recognise that I was in so many different cages before belief coding that I was stifling my own progress, stifling my own creativity. Because when you're trapped in a loop of it's not safe to get up and stand on stage or be seen fully, or why did that not feel safe for you? It goes back to my childhood. Um things happened to me in my childhood where I wasn't kept safe and I didn't feel safe without going into the depths of it. And a part of me shut down. And I think when I stood on stage, I felt very very vulnerable and exposed, like I had nowhere to hide. So my brain made the meaning that I made at the point in my childhood that I decided it's not safe to be seen, it's not safe to be in a an area, you know, somewhere where you can't escape and and leave. Because when you're in the middle of a performance, the audience is sat watching. Come on, you know, and and they're not there to trip you up, they genuinely want you to, you know, do really well because that's part of the work that I do as well, is is is working with performing artists and saying, or you know, speakers, poets, anybody that takes a stage, even teachers, because they're on stage all day long in front of young people, that the audience isn't out to get you. They're people like you, they're they are on side. And if you are focused on what they're thinking, you know, you're not going to be able to get the performance out there. Just focus on, you know, helping them feel great and have a great evening and a great night, and you're in one big living room. That's the way I approach it. I feel like I've wandered off what you asked me, but you have to then make sense of making the stage a safe place for you to be. If if if that because one of my goals was to sing anything, anytime, anyplace, anywhere, and not be hung up about what people were thinking or that I'm going to get caught out or something's going to go wrong. Um, and I've, you know, belief coding is, I mean, I I've worked very hard on performance anxiety anyway, with all the other tools and techniques that I've I've gathered over the years. But belief coding was like the cherry on the cake because it made me go deeper. Yeah. It takes you deeper into your subconscious thinking mind, into your subconscious, the subconscious part of your mind where it's a bit like a hard drive. It remembers everything, everything you've seen, everything you've done, every person you've met, every place you've been. It's just like a the hard drive of a computer just locking everything in, but it's actually running the show. Feel like I'm not doing belief coding the justice it needs, but it is basically working very much with the subconscious thinking mind and understanding that you've got more control than you think. Because I think we have this illusion that, oh, I'm just an anxious person, that's me, that's my lot. And it's like, oh, that's belief, right? Yeah. But it's also, well, if that's the case, then that cops you out of doing any work to improve it or change it. That's like you sort of saying, I'm resting on my laurels, you know, I'm not going to do anything. Yeah, I'm not going to do anything about that. I can't help. I'm just an angry person, or you know, I get stressed very easily, or you know, that's just who I am. I'm naturally shy. Babies are born babies, they are not aware of themselves. And you can see the difference between, like, I've got two grandchildren now, which I can't believe. I've got a little granddaughter who's coming up for two, and a grandson who's coming up for four. And the sad thing is, I can see the difference between them. That my grandson is blessing, starting to become aware of himself and his surroundings, and not necessarily quite saying what he wants to say or doing what he wants to do, because he's aware of himself and other people around him. My granddaughter, she couldn't give a monkeys. If I want to go over there and slash in that puddle, I don't care, I've got my nice dress on, or and she'll walk in and go, Ah, yeah, you know, we call it almost conscious of herself. Almost, it's almost like I've spoken about this before on a previous video that I did for my socials. It's like the second innocence. Like when you're younger, you don't have that care, you don't have that as much of that self-awareness. And I think you go through these peaks and troughs throughout teenagers, adulthood, and then I'd like to think, I don't think I'm quite there yet with it, with it all, but are we ever all quite there yet? But you kind of come back around to this. Oh, it's you're self-aware, but not in a self-conscious way. Yeah, you actually doing the things that you did when you were a child, or tapping into that inner child within you, but this time with intention and purpose. And it and I think if you can get round to that point, what a beautiful place to be. It gives you a sense of freedom and peace because I've just gone through a round of advanced belief coding, which was off the scale with an amazing belief coding facilitator called Amber Addison, who I'm now going to be working really closely with, so I'm thrilled. She's she's just a fabulous human being, and she's just naturally gifted at creating a safe and warm environment. And I thought, you know, I need to go to the depths of the person, of the core of who I believe I am and and what I've been believing about myself, like, you know, the things I'm capable of, the things I'm not capable of, what makes me me, yeah, you know, and where did that all come from? And is that actually serving me? Or is it is it, you know, is it limiting me? And I went right back to um being asked a question at pri at um infant, it was infants in the day, uh being asked at preschool, do I have a dad? Or where's your dad? And I've never met never known my father, never knew him, never met him. And I remember I went back to that in the session, and everything suddenly made sense. Why I'm the way I am, why I've made the choices I've made, why I decided that I mustn't be lovable, I must have done something wrong, there's must be something wrong with me as a little girl, because my dad's not there. I didn't, I wasn't aware that I didn't have a dad because I was used to living with my mum, my granddad, my grandma, and my uncle. That was my experience. I didn't, as a four-year-old, you know, almost four four-year-old, question that because that was my reality, and I can't believe Amber enabled me to go back to that and make sense of it and give little Lisa in that moment where she felt my whole reality sort of change because I had never thought of it before. This was just I thought everyone else obviously lived like I did. Um and then it made sense why I've been looking for love in all the wrong places and not feeling worthy, not feeling good enough because my dad left because it was my fault, or everybody else has a dad and I didn't. And I know not everybody's got a father and a mother, I get that, but I was making sense of little Lisa and why I've felt so vulnerable and alone and not really knowing who I am. Because if you've never looked in the eyes of your own father or had a conversation even with your own father, what does that mean about who you are? And you know it very much enabled me to go back to little Lisa and give her what she needed in that moment, and what she needed in that moment was reassurance that she's okay, because all I could then stand and do was go, no, I I haven't got a dad for, and and then it's a kind of what what do I then do with that? And and it's what did I make that mean at that time, and the beliefs that formed as a result of that is what I've gone through with Amber and unpicked. And because we in that moment were able to give little Lisa what she needed, the reassurance and it's okay, and it actually doesn't mean that it's about you not being good enough. It changed the beliefs, it's recreated almost a memory within your mind that you can then correlate, which our brains do so well with well, we're gonna be able to do that. But we don't know the difference between something that's vividly imagined and something that's actually happening, and that's why films are so powerful. Music is powerful because it can take you on a journey, and in that in within belief coding, it's you can go back to the original upset, the original trauma or the original trigger and change what that means basically, reframe it, yeah, um, but but do it permanently not, you know. It but I do I do want to say that I've found through experiencing it as well and from facilitating sessions, because I am still um I'm almost at accreditation stage, um, and I'm in the master programme as well. But you know, it's for me, it's one session can remove a lot of beliefs, but I think if you have a couple, you know, two or three, in quick succession, it really like gets to the bottom of it. Where when you said before, counselling is amazing, I would never discredit any other way of working with someone or any other modality because I think everything's got its place. But for me, having experienced counselling, um, and there's lots of different types. I've had psychotherapy, I've had person-centred counselling, um, I've had CBT, it tends to focus around discussing the discomfort and making sense of it. So it's almost like you're reliving it. Whereas with belief coding, you don't relive it, you can observe it, you don't sit in it, and then you change it. We've said as well with counselling, you've come to understand maybe why you might be feeling a certain way, but it's like, what do you do? What do you then do with that? Yeah, you sat with it and you know it might be affecting like every now and again, you get these thoughts, feelings, things are coming up, but what do you do with it? And I think that was when I spoke to you about belief in it, belief coding a while back. That was like the the that was the hook for me because I was like, I've had counselling myself, and it's like the last the last session of counselling I had was great, but it I almost felt like I know why I'm getting these thoughts and feelings, but how do I actually change my actions, my behaviors, my thoughts? How do I actually help that? Like, we're all quite practical, aren't we? We want to know what we can do, you want to truly physically do. We want to be able to grow and get better and and learn from ourselves and not just be given the information to then go, well, yeah, I get that, but but then what? Um, so it yeah, it's really interesting what you're saying about how belief coding can actually tap into that and help you really change that. So that so that ultimately you can live a better life and a fulfilled life, a better quality of life because you'll make decisions that are actually aligned with what you really want and how you feel, you know, because you've you get that discomfort and that uncomfortable feeling because you know you want to do something, but your beliefs and your thoughts and your emotions are pulling you back. It's almost like you've been being pulled in two different directions, and it's it's not a nice feeling. And also, I think a lot of creatives and and people in performing arts, they are sensitive. You know, you do use the right side of the brain a lot. It is the creative side and the side that likes to imagine and and you know let go, and you do need to be in a in a state of freedom in a way to be able to do that. You don't, you know, you'd be you need to be just less aware of yourself and and not uncon you know living in the subconscious, that's that's not the right thing. But what I mean is you need to be free to create and free to be who you want to be. And they say your best work and your most creative work comes from when you are the most relaxed, yeah, and that definitely explains why. Now, most people would often say from your 40s onwards, that's when things might start to slow down. But for you, that is a that's totally different if anything, things are really sped up. Yeah, so what's been the journey to get to get there? Because you've been in Lay Miz when you were in your 40s, yeah. Yeah, and you started singing on cruise ships when you were 41. Yeah, obviously two major achievements, and you weren't, it's not like you're a backing singer on a cruise ship, you headline, headline, yeah, entertainer, which I'm really grateful. So, what's the journey to get you to that point? Oh, wow. Well, I started out in music because I was very fortunate. My grandfather and my grandmother were in the music industry. My granddad was a uh jazz trumpet player, taught himself to play the trumpet, ended up in the Sid Lawrence Orchestra working for the BBC, um with the Northern Dance Orchestra. My grandma was a singer with the squadronaires with an orchestra called the Tommy Sampson Orchestra, and um she was touring Germany in her own right in her teens, you know. Um, her mother was a classical soprano and a pianist, and my great-great-grandmother was also a classical pianist, so it's in there, it's in the bones, the Adams family. It is amazing. Um, uh and basically, um like the Von Trapps, you know, um Sound of Music. And basically, I grew up around music and I did what a lot of young a lot of kids get the opportunity to do if you lucky. You know, my mum took me to dancing school and I enjoyed it, but I found my voice um when I was in what would be year seven of high school. We called it first year back then, you know, giving my age away. Um, when we were putting on a little show, there was an advert put up in the hall saying, Do you want to perform for the residential home next door where older people were? And I just thought, oh, that'd be quite nice. Didn't even give it a thought. You can sing a song. I'd never really thought about my voice before. I must have been a I must have been 11, going on 12. Um, although I'd sung to myself, but never really thought about it. And I sang Blue Moon and this voice just came out, and I was quite shocked by it. And I think my mum came as well, and she was like, whoa. And as soon as my granddad got wind of it, he had me in front of his 26-piece swing band orchestra, and I did a concert at the um the Royal Northern College of Music with his band with Swingin Affair, singing Blue Skies, you know, and I was like, and that was it, I was in, I loved it. Went to dance school, went to performing arts college, um, the Grange, which isn't anymore, which is Oldham, in Oldham, Pigginshaw um was was the building that we all went in. That that's now used for something else. But the Grange Performing Arts Centre in theatre was was fabulous. And um, but I was a teen mum, had my daughter very young, so I was 19. Um, and basically I just thought, right, I I had it in, I had a belief that following my music career, being in theatre wasn't a sensible enough option, and that I needed to do something that would be good for me and my daughter. So I for my love of human beings and people and caring, my caring nature. I I went and trained in social work. I did want to be a nurse like my mum, but my mum went, Oh, don't do nursing, it'll it'll have your bad, your back bad like mine, you know, back bad because she got a bad back from lifting patients. Um, so I I went into social work and I studied really hard. I I did six years straight, I did two years redoing some of my A levels, and then went to Bradford University for four years and did applied social studies with social work degree. And went into social work, loved it, but it was hard. It was it was brutal and quite depressing actually. Um but again I loved being around people and doing what I could, but I I soon realised you can only do so much. And I've got a very I've always had a very active and inquiring mind. And I then life coaching came into the scenario, and I'd always read lots of self-help books, and there were things going on in my personal life. Um while I was at university, sadly, my my childhood best friend from high school was she was murdered.

SPEAKER_00 37:04

How old were you then?

SPEAKER_01 37:05

22. And she'd been 22, and that was a massive shock, as you can imagine. Um it almost seemed surreal. It still does when I think about it. And Sonia was the most gentle, kindest, purest, beautiful soul you could ever wish to meet, inside and out, absolutely beautiful, talented, she could dance, she could sing, she was, she was just I just loved her. And her life was cut short, so that was a big shock. Um and I think I was guided into doing like life coaching and and helping people because of the experiences I'd had myself. My granddad passed away through cancer. I was with him when he passed, I was only 18, that was just before I had my daughter. That was a big wrench. I saw the impact that had on all my family, and I kind of fell out with music a bit when he went because I sang with his band for six, seven years, and when he went, it it took a part of me with him because he was like my father figure, and I've gone backwards and forwards. But so there's the death of you know, his death, losing Sonia, having a child young. My relationship with Charlotte's dad didn't work out because he, you know, he was um physically and emotionally abusive towards me, and that ended. Um, and then I went on and had two more babies, um, who I absolutely adore. So I've got three children now. And I was doing my music in the background with the life coaching, um, and I very quickly thought, hang on a minute, I'm helping people make the best decisions that they can in their life and you know, achieve their dreams and dream big, you know, don't limit yourself with your beliefs. That's when I wrote Believe and Achieve. And then I suddenly felt an emptiness inside, and because I was doing my music in the background. I was I was in like a band called Fruition, where it was quite um light, I'd say very melodic dance music, and you know, and I loved it. A bit like Moloco or what Jimariquai was doing, something you know, very I loved it. I loved it. Although I'm sure Jimmeriquai won't love that analogy. Um but yeah, it was a bit like the Jess Glynn kind of music of its time, when you know, um even um Jewel, that kind of vibe where it's it's high energy, but it's got a real good melody to it, it's not too heavy like house or trance or you know, um so I was involved in that. So I've always kept my foot in with my music, um, and I've kind of been pulled between really loving helping and and supporting people because I you as a coach or as a facilitator, you're not you're not giving people what they need. You you're creating an environment where they can make sense of it for themselves and empower themselves in a way, because that's part of the process, isn't it? That you know, I'm not the one with the power. I don't I I just hold the space that enables and facilitates that person being able to go into that memory or that part of the life and make sense of it and think, hang on a minute, I've got more control over this and I'm giving myself credit for. And I think that's the amazing thing about belief coding. You you you realize that actually it's not my fault that I'm responding this way or making these decisions or staying small and staying in the background when I want to be really in the foreground. It's because I've learned that it's not safe to do it. And it's interesting because I think that's one of the biggest misconceptions, arguably, with any form of therapy or belief coding counselling is that people quite often say that I've come across anyway, well, what are they gonna tell me about my own life that I don't know? How are they gonna help? And it's like, no, no, it's not how they're gonna help, it's how they're gonna help you help yourself, exactly. But people don't necessarily believe they have it within them to have that capability, although it's possible. Yeah, I think we're we're a lot of the time we think everything's linear, and that that's that's your personality set in stone, but your personality, it's your personal reality, so it's the reality you believe about yourself because of what you've been told from being a child by other people, the environment you were brought up in, what their beliefs were, and again, your parents and your caregivers, they're doing the best they can with what they've got at the time, you know, the emotional resilience they had, the lessons they learned or didn't learn, you know, um the environment they were brought up in, the school they went to, and what the teachers were like, everything, you know, the society at the time, what the thinking was of the society that you were born into. You know, are you born into the idea that anything's possible if you put your mind to it? Or are you born in in the midst of the pandemic where everything's scary? It's it's it depends, you know, on many different factors why you become the person that you believe you are, because the beliefs and the behaviours and the energy of the people that you grow up around affect who you believe you are and what you're capable of. So, you know. So, when how old were you when you had your third child? When I had Marcus, I was 37. Okay, so 37-year-old Lisa, you were getting back into your music, it's always played a part in the background. Yeah. What were the sort of beliefs around that time then, and how has that changed to where you are now? Because a considerable amount's happened in that period of time, hasn't it? So what that's a really good question. I love that. So 37-year-old Lisa was obviously in the midst of family life. I was I was mixing a part-time social work job in tr in uh adoption and fostering with bringing up my children. Um I was getting married. Um and I believed that to be honest, I know that whenever I had a child, I always got this burst of creative energy. Like almost it was like part of being a woman, this maternal instinct kicked in, but my feminine energy just Went through the roof, and I just I think I thought anything was possible. Um, and Marcus, um, my third child, he um I was thrilled I was having a boy because I'd had two girls, you know, and I'd always, you know, you should be. I would I'd have been thrilled if it had been a girl, but it was nice to have a boy because I'd never been a boy mum. Um and and at that point, I I did I don't think I had any belief about my music. I I just thought, oh, it's gonna be quite it's gonna be difficult to manage a musical career now with three three children. Um my eldest daughter was at university or going to university very soon. And yeah, my middle daughter was six. So I think I had limitations on what I thought might be possible as a young mum. Um, but I had I had that pull, I had my music still inside me. And prior to that, I was I was singing at Cloud 23 in Manchester at the Hilton for oh, I think I was there for three years with a really good pal of mine, Aidan Townend, and he played piano, and we had um a saxophonist play and a drummer sometimes. We were like the jazz, the jazz duo and trio, and oh, it was amazing, I loved it. Did a lot of corporate work, um, but but then the big the big um the big thing unfortunately was that my relationship didn't work because my love for music wasn't reciprocated because I was a mum and it's not what mums do, and I think it just caused a lot of conflict between us. Um and things didn't work out. Uh, and it was at that point that I stepped in for a singer that was sick at a big corporate function um event, basically, a corporate event, and it was a big sort of footballer's wives kind of event, it was amazing. I think Martipello was singing from Wet Wet Wet that night, and I was like a bit starstruck, and I went, I went and sang um because it was um an around the world um vibe for the singers um from different places around the world. And I was in um I think I did Vegas, so I think I sang a Celine Dion, and oh I'm trying to think what I sang. Which I can imagine that's River Deep. River Deep, yeah, that was it. That's fabulous. And I was I was loving it. Um and I had my beautiful dress on, and I was yeah, I was nervous, but I loved it. And um I was just in the right place at the right time. And Zoe Tyler, who is amazing, she was on loose women in the in the beginning. Um, she's a vocal coach, and she spotted me and she she got in touch with me and said, Do you want to go on the cruises? And I was like, So at the time my marriage fell apart, I was offered to go on the cruises, and it was like, wow. Um, and my initial my initial belief was well, how am I going to do that when I've got you know a two and a half year old? Which is what a lot of performers will relate to, yeah. Even creatives that work on the road a lot. Yes, the responsibility of being a mother and wanting to be at home and to look after the house and look after the family. But at the same time, it's what I wanted to do. Yeah, it's a calling and that that yeah, and and the judgment was uh immense from other people. Well, oh she's gonna go on the ship and leave her little boy with with his dad for a week. I was like, yeah, because that means that for the next eight weeks I've got enough money to make ends meet and to be there for them. So, what's the difference between doing something you love, the children seeing a happy mum? Because, you know, I'm teaching them that follow your dreams, you can do it, you know. Um, I mean, there's I've got a different thinking now, but at the time I was in my mind doing something I loved and showing my children that you know you can do what you love. It it's kind of you know, if you do what you love, you never work a day in your life, you're following your dream. Um, and I was, you know, there was a lot of judgment from from other mothers, from other people, from my my ex-husband, um, pushback from from him, my family, you know, who but it was the best decision I made because 15, you know, how many years later, 14 years later, I'm still doing it and I love it. But I was only aware, you know, a week every couple of months, you know, or at the most I ever did was one a month, which was actually too much to juggle with motherhood. And I realised that. Um but when the lay mis thing came around, and again I was in the right place at the right time, and but I think really now I realise it was the universe doing its work. Um I still doubted myself. I still had a lot of self-doubt, and I was white-knuckling it really. I'd add the LISA then to the LISA now was using everything I'd learnt in my life coaching and NLP, which I forgot to mention, NLP, which is very much understanding how our minds function and how we make sense of things and um neurolinguistic programming, it is, you know, um the things we say, the words we use, how we describe ourselves and others. It's again, it's not entirely dissimilar to belief coding. There are elements of NLP and belief coding, but it's all basically about understanding your own thought patterns, your own behaviour patterns, and how that makes you feel, and how that then makes you think, and that it's a loop, isn't it? If you think a certain thing, you start to feel a certain way and you start to make certain decisions and behaviours, you know, and then that influences then all the thinking. So it's like a a vicious circle, really, in a way. Um, so that Lisa, um, at the time, even though with the NLP and the life coaching and the social work and all the personal development books I read, and I loved Wayne Dyer, I loved, you know, and I still do love Anthony Robbins, and I went on his his Unleashed the power within weekend, and I've walked on fire and hot coals and all the rest of it. But I was very much in and out of it. You know, I'd go to these events and it'd be amazing, and then I'd come away from it and I'd like still have all these doubts about performing. And I kept myself small, even on the ships. I gradually introduced more challenging songs, and I gradually, you know, when I did my voice vocal coach training in between my work on the ships, um it it was a gradual process that I introduced more challenging songs because I understood how to technically use my voice more, and you know, um how my you know my breath worked, my breathing, my my um how held my body, you know, my physicality was infecting, you know, the way that I used my voice and all the um vocal health that, you know, and vocal anatomy, I understood how I was actually physically using my voice. But for me, the biggest issue wasn't technical ability and stamina and vocal prowess, it was what was going on in my mind. I was I was there was there were blocks there, and and I'd get through the performance and I'd do really well, but then I'd come off and I'd be almost defeated. Like, and I'd be back at square one, anxious again, you know, and then I'd build up to the next performance. And even with Lay Miss, I loved it and I got the opportunity. It was a small um series of celebratory concerts that were in the northwest, and I was in the right place at the right time. And I think the person that put the production together, um, there were other um people that had been in the West End playing some of the parts. There were people like me that weren't from the West End but were performers and auditioned and had been lucky enough to get picked, um, that were in it.

SPEAKER_00 52:42

But lucky or talented enough?

SPEAKER_01 52:46

Yeah, I think I think, yeah, I mean, my love of my love of of performing and um doing what I do kept kept me going, kept, made me push through it, I think. But it did feel a bit like a white knuckle ride. Whereas now, I just my beliefs are very different. I I I understand why I was like that, and then I've got more compassion for me. You know, if if I crack on a note, I've not murdered anyone, I've not, you know, all right, I get it. You know, if I'm on a ship and that happens, you've paid a lot of money to be here. But I am a human being and I'm not gonna give myself a hard time. But if I'm focusing on, I hope I reach that note, then there's a there's it's it's on a, you know, I'm coming back from a limited space. This is gonna be amazing. You know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, the audience are gonna love the show, but more importantly, it's about how they're gonna feel rather than how I'm gonna feel, you know, it you change the fit the focus and the frame of it. And now I believe that if I believe I can hit that note and I believe I can nail it, I can. And the other thing that I've been doing as well is visualising rehearsing because athletes do it, you know. I remember is it Michael Jordan, the basketball player, he used to mentally rehearse everything. I know there's other athletes after that that do it, even um Hussein Bolt used to mentally run his races and think, right, you know, because the body, again, the brain doesn't know the difference between what's vividly imagined and what's really happening. It's it thinks you're doing it, it you it runs you through it, and there's been research done where you know people have been lifting weights, physically lifting them, and then people have been imagining lifting that way and seeing themselves doing it, and the muscle strength and mass was comparable to the ones that were imagining it and the ones that were actually doing it. It's incredible. So the the body and the mind work together as one, and that's the other thing about belief coding that I love. You realize that your issues are in your tissues, you you store your body, keeps the score that you know, I think it's Bruce Lipton that wrote that book where you know, because there is the emotion code and the body code, which is basically the code that we're running on, like it computers, you know, this coding, these programs that are running, that you store these things in the body, you know, that's where dis-ease comes from. It's stored in the body because the mind is struggling, the body follows. What would you say are three beliefs that you believe about yourself now that you didn't believe about yourself back then? That I'm a fantastic person just as I am, I'm a good person to be around, that whatever I put my mind to I can achieve, and that life's what you make it. Yeah, and I belie I believe um I believe that I can make a big impact with the journey that I've been on and the understanding that I've got of why we do what we do and the fact that we've got so much more control over it than we we believe. And no, I I know, I believe that I've now got the tools necessary to help other people make the changes that I've made. I've seen it. I mean, they do EEGs live as part of the training, we've seen it, where they've had a woman that was in the early onset of dementia, her brain rewired in real time and she could remember things that she'd forgotten. And that's in the very early stages. They've done trials with um fibromalgia. Again, it's the huge connection between the mind, the subconscious cages, the subconscious mind, and the body. And you know, if you feel stressed or upset about something, how do you know you're upset? How do we know we're upset? What's the first thing we feel? You know, you you might get a sinking feeling, or you might start to get your heart rate might start to increase if you're stressed, you know. Well, it will because it's the you know, the nervous system kicking in, the alarm system, your amygdala firing, you know, fight, fly or freeze, fawn, you know, you you your alarm system kicks off, which sends adrenaline flying around the body and cortisol, and there's a there's a you know, a biochemical reaction happens in the body faster than you can think. What's one message you would like to tell people that you think is really important for living your most fulfilled life? Oh wow, I love that. The message is that regardless of where your life is right now or the road that you've been on and the peaks and the troughs that you've experienced, the highs and the lows, you really do have more inside than you would ever believe. You you you are more capable than you think you are, you're stronger than you think you are, you've got more resilience than you think you've got. And you are capable of making sense of that and understanding, really understanding yourself and having that compassion that will enable you to make actually life-changing changes, which I have made to get through just a few of the examples of domestic violence, losing all my money, the death of a friend, the death of like a father figure, being attacked, being, you know, being being physically assaulted, and you know, childhood sexual abuse, the things I've been through. And I'm and everybody has their own baggage, their own suitcase of, you know, their story. But, you know, if you think about people, and I've had the I've had the pleasure of talking to some amazing people that have really struggled and had some dreadful experiences. And even being the parent of a young man who, you know, I'm the mother of of a of a an adolescent who is living with Tourette's and autism and ADHD, and the struggles I've experienced as his as as observing him, that the struggles I've seen him go through and the the isolation I've experienced as his mother. Um, you know, you can be in the the deepest depths of despair, but you can get out of it. You can you have more choice than you think, you know, you have everything inside of you that you need. And I remember I remember hearing Anthony Robbins say, All I need is within me now. And we were saying it incessantly, all I need is within me now. And and and he's right, and it like Louise Hay, I love her, you know, she she was an amazing woman, and I still listen to her now, where she's saying, you know, I am safe, I am loved, and my life is working out for me, you know. Everything will will work out. It's the story that you tell yourself, the narrative that you have going on in your mind on a consistent basis is the reality that you will experience because your brain will look for, you know, to keep you safe. It will look for the things that you're worried about. It will constantly because I've I realise now that the Lisa now, I'm not looking for the for the negative, I'm not looking out for what's gonna go wrong. I'm not, I'm looking out for what's gonna go right, and you know, I'm seeking out and you can't we we've we've come into each other's um lives because I wouldn't have been in the right in that place to have met you if if the old Lisa was thinking that I couldn't go back to my acting or you know, anything wasn't possible at the time. Um, and you can really see that and sense it because we're all energy, aren't we? And being around you, whether it's been in a coaching capacity, whether we've done filming together, as friends when we met for coffee, like yeah, being around your energy is a really nice energy to be around. Oh, yeah. And I'm very I'm very fortunate to have met you, and I'm very fortunate to have had you on the Connect cast. You're a brilliant guest to have on, and I really do believe you provide a lot of value to listeners and going forward with your belief coding. Thanks. I really, really believe that and I know that for facts. So thank you so so much.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:55

You're very welcome on the Connect Cast. I feel like we could sit for hours on the fully board, everybody.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:00

We could say you don't know where I am from Adam, but I think I just want people to know that no matter what situation in life you find yourself in, you're gonna you you're gonna get through it, you're gonna be okay. You know, you've got inner resources that you can tap into. Inner resources that that you can tap into at a heartbeat. In fact, your heartbeat's one of them. Even just getting your hand and putting it on your own heart releases oxytocin, which will calm the nervous system down. You know, your parasympathetic nervous system is is in overdrive. You just calm it down. And I mean, you're it's also a pleasure to have you on as well, because it's really apparent that you're a font of knowledge. I mean, you've obviously you've read so I know this about you anyway. You've read so much, you've really you've you've really put in the work to be the woman that you have that you are now sat here in front of us. And you know, I can only mention there's there's I can't even count on my hands the amount of names of books that you've read from the people, the inspiring people that you've you've read into, and you've really, really done the work. So I'm so grateful that you've come in today. Yeah, but I'm gonna ask you a question that I ask all of my guests lastly on the cast, which is what's one lesson that life keeps trying to teach you? Gosh, I'm never usually lost in words, Tash, am I? I mean, I feel like if I say this, it's gonna undo everything I've said I believe in because I do believe I've got everything I need inside of me. I do believe I'm capable. But I think life keeps trying to just keep reminding me, you know, you've got this, believe in yourself, you can do this. It keeps trying to teach me that I'm good enough just as I am. I don't need to make any alterations, you know, physically or emotionally. I mean, I don't mean that as in we're all on um a journey, aren't we? You know, it's like being a lifelong learner. The journey is going until you you leave this body and you go where you believe you go. Um so it's yeah, but life is always teaching me. I think I think on a positive note, life is always teaching me how wonderful it is. Because I meet people like you, you know, and we're here and vice versa. Our Georges then making me sound fabulous and look fabulous, I hope. I've got my good side. So life's all life always keeps teaching you that you know, you get what you you get what you you focus on, you get what you wish for. You know, so think about what you're wishing for, think about what you're aspiring to be, yeah, because it will happen. I don't want anyone with talent to not be seen and not do what they love because they're frightened of it, they don't truly believe that they can do it. I'm on a mission to help as many people believe that they can. And just and just a lasting thought there, which has just reminded me, I remember when I came to you um for life coaching a couple of years back, and I think in an exact sentence, I said, Lisa, I just need someone I can trust on the side. And the exact thing you said back to me was, Tash, you just need to trust yourself. And that always stayed with me. Yeah. Even to this day, whenever I do a new project, or whenever I go into something new, or I'm uncertain about something, that exact sentence always stays with me. And even from then, you've done so much more training, even since then. Yeah. So I'm very grateful to have met you. Thank you so, so much. Very welcome.