[00:00:00] Stacey: So we kind of learn just by proxy that there's this good and this bad, but I don't subscribe to that.
I just think there is. And so we create the stories that we want. If I'm not feeling good, it's wrong. If I'm not feeling happy about this, it's bad. And so what I learned is that life is a series of experiences divinely designed for this if you think life was supposed to go this way. And because life is not going this way, it doesn't feel good.
And so therefore it must be bad. But if we know and aspire to this idea that life is a series of experiences divinely designed for us, there is no right or wrong, and we can just then flow with what's happening.
[00:00:55] Aneta: We often hear people wishing us a long, happy, and healthy life, but what if the length isn't what matters most? What if instead, it's the breadth depth, and purpose of each day that matters most? Welcome to the Live the Width of Your Life podcast. My name is Aneta Ardelian Kuzma and join me weekly as I interview guests who made changes in their own lives to live more fully with intention, gratitude, and joy. Be prepared to be inspired by their stories of how they shifted their mindset, took courageous action, and designed the life that they always wanted to live.
Welcome back to the Live the Width of Your Life podcast. My guest this week is Stacy Uhrig. She's a coach and trauma specialist, and she has two core beliefs. There is a gift in every challenge and there's a purpose in the pain. She believes that life is a series of experiences divinely designed for us. It is her goal to help you flip your mindset and see your life challenges and experiences through a new and more relevant lens.
She's a certified trauma recovery coach. She's certified in hypnosis and rapid transformational therapy. She's a speaker and a podcast host of Flip Your Mindset. She also does one-on-one coaching and therapy in her private practice. And her purpose is to help break the stigma around mental health. And specifically trauma.
Her philosophy is that everyone walks with a story. And most of these stories from childhood are rooted in their nervous system as traumatic. And trauma does not have to be a form of aggression or violence. It could be anything that leaves an individual feeling and believing that they were unheard.
Unseen, Insignificant, Unemployment, Not Enough. And once it's rooted in the core belief system, it's the lens through which we see ourselves and the others and then the world around us. We had such a great conversation and I loved that Stacey talks about reclaiming agency becoming empowered and rewriting our life stories.
We had such a great conversation and I learned a lot. I hope you enjoy it. Take a listen.
Stacy, welcome to the Live the Width of Your Life podcast. I'm so excited to have you here with me today.
[00:03:04] Stacey: Thank you so much for having me.
[00:03:06] Aneta: I loved watching your videos on Instagram and learning more about who you are. And I want to compliment you on your brand and really how you're showing up and the value that you are adding.
So maybe we could just start with people who haven't met you or aren't that familiar with your work, just sharing a little bit more about your background.
[00:03:28] Stacey: Sure. So by trade. So when I say by trade, I mean like a handful of certifications, that kind of background. I'm a trauma recovery coach. I coach people through what I consider a trauma-focused lens. I utilize a lot of different therapeutic modalities in that. Very keen on parts work. Specifically, things like internal family systems from Richard Schwartz blended with a polyvagal lens, which really what that just means is that I understand that there are different parts of everybody driving the ship all the time.
And that when different parts are present, we have activation in our system. And I help people identify that so they can start getting more in peace within their bodies. And then I also am trained in something known as rapid transformational therapy. And that is a key tool to helping work with my clients because it's done under hypnosis.
It's a form of hypnotherapy. That incorporates a huge recipe of things like neurolinguistic programming, neuroscience, cognitive behavioral therapy, and some more of those parts work in her child's work. So it's an amazing tool. And so that's what I do. I'm a coach. I consider myself a coach and a trauma specialist, and I help educate my clients on how they're stuck, and why they're stuck.
So they can gain more agency and more understanding of how their body is working from past lived experiences that they don't realize were impactful.
[00:05:06] Aneta: How did you get into this work?
[00:05:10] Stacey: I think that. Everybody's walking with some sort of story. And then there are those of us who took a lot of time to get to the root of their own story. And so when people do that, I think what you end up with is what's called a lot of post-traumatic wisdom. And I am chock full of that. So I used to spend a lot of time in every role I've ever had in any organization I've ever had.
Being that sounding board for people, was never part of my official role, but it was part of my job. I love the most. And so in my late 40s, I decided that I could probably make that into a business and how could I formalize that? Because I knew I was good at it and it brought me such joy and pleasure.
And that's really how I got started. It was doing my work and transferring that into helping other people.
[00:06:06] Aneta: I love that. What did you do before you said in?
[00:06:10] Stacey: I've done everything. So my training, my degree, my bachelor's degrees in speech pathology and audiology. So have always been in a helping role. And I used to work with young children with autism back in the 90s. Well, before autism was understood the way it is understood today. So I was a speech therapist for that population for many years and then I actually left that and I went into the family business and my brother and my dad had started a business a year prior.
So this was in 1998 and I joined them and I did everything from soup to nuts in that business for 15 years. And then I kind of dabbled around in helping other people turn their businesses around. So I'm kind of a serial entrepreneur, which is a neat and an important skill set to have as a coach because there are two very different skill sets.
But that being said, in every role I've ever had, I've been the person sought out for more mental health support than anything. And so, like I said earlier, that was what I loved. I loved being that person for people and it came to me very naturally and I'm very intuitive. So a lot of times I would hear what they were saying, but I knew there were other things that they were trying to express that they didn't know how to express.
And I had a keen ability to slow the conversation and say I know you said this but are you looking to resolve this and they'd be like yes, and thank you because I didn't know how to say that or I didn't dare to say that or I didn't have the language for that so I knew I had this keen ability and when I decided it was time to put it to real use it was like flow
[00:08:01] Aneta: Wow. That's so amazing. And I love that you shared that because I think some people feel like it's too late to make a change, but it's never too late. Like I believe, and I think your story is one of those examples. And especially because you were in tune with your gift. I know you said you have this ability.
It's a gift to be able to do what it is that you do. And I loved your bio, there are two things I wanted to point out. You said that you have two core beliefs, that there is a gift in every challenge and that there is purpose in the pain and that life is a series of experiences divinely designed for us.
Can you tell me a little bit more about how you came to understand this and then how have you seen it over and over again, maybe with the clients that you're working with?
[00:08:46] Stacey: So I think when you're innately in tune, and I think everybody's intuitive. And I have plenty of friends who are much more tapped into their intuition than even I am. But all of those phrases, those are things I've heard, they're not things I created for myself. Meaning, that I could be working with someone and I would hear that phrase.
So it could sound like I created it for myself, but I felt like I was almost downloading it or just receiving it if you will. Okay. They all make a lot of sense to me because one of the things that I learned early on before I started my practice was part of what keeps people stuck. How old are you Aneta?
[00:09:27] Aneta: I'll be 52.
[00:09:28] Stacey: Okay. So I'm 52. I'll be 53 this year. Okay. So this will make sense because we're the same generation. So when we were growing up, we grew up on Disney and cartoons and all of these different influences. And there was kind of this very subtle message that we were all receiving, which is when you are happy, it's because things are good.
But anytime you're not happy, anytime something's not, I'm putting in quotes, good. It's bad.
And by the way, don't air your dirty laundry. Don't burden people with your problems, and so on. So we kind of learn just by proxy that there's this good and this bad, but I don't subscribe to that.
I just think there is. And so we create the stories that we want. If I'm not feeling good, it's wrong. If I'm not feeling happy about this, it's bad. And so what I learned is that life is a series of experiences divinely designed for this if you think life was supposed to go this way. And because life is not going this way, it doesn't feel good.
And so therefore it must be bad. And therefore, I must have guilt, or I must have shame, or there must be something wrong because I should be over here in my mind, or maybe this is what I've been taught I should be. But if we know and aspire to this idea that life is a series of experiences divinely designed for us, there is no right or wrong, and we can just then flow with what's happening.
And recognize that whatever is happening is happening because I am on this journey and there are lessons I need to learn because the other part of that saying is rooted in the idea that we are meant to be on this earth to learn something.
[00:11:39] Aneta: Yeah.
[00:11:39] Stacey: We have a series of experiences that are designed for us. So we can, at the end of our lifetime, have realized what it is that was the purpose of this lifetime. So when we fight what's happening, we're fighting the lessons, but what I also know is that our lessons happen under strain. They happen, unfortunately, under duress. Our breakthroughs come from our breakdowns.
We hear this. So I always see that life's most beautiful experiences are this catalyst of respite. And that life is just really a series of hurdles, and it's our job to learn how to hurdle it and those are not fun all the time. And we're not going to clear those hurdles all the time. And so we're going to flip and we're going to fall and we're going to get scraped and bruised and hurt.
And that's not bad. That's part of the job. That's the lesson. What are you learning? How are you going to do that differently? What are you hitting up against? Well, we can shift our perspective flip our mindset, and look at that life experience through that lens. We don't look at it as a bad thing. We can look at it as a necessary thing. And so all of these sayings, life is a series of experiences divinely designed for us is rooted in that, there's a gift in every challenge. What am I learning about myself, even through the worst experiences? How did I shift in a way that I'm different than the experience before? In a way, I'm learning something about myself.
You might be learning that you're resilient. You might be learning that you have to learn how to rely on other people, whatever it is, it might not be an experience you'd want, but there's a necessary lesson to be learned in your lifetime. And so that's where all of these sayings come from.
[00:13:41] Aneta: It's so true and they make sense and I know it's from my own experience, but it's so hard to be in the moment sometimes the last thing we want to do is to be still and to feel all of the feelings and to do the reflection because the mind is powerful and it tells us all these stories and we create all of this noise and we allow ourselves to internalize all of the experiences.
So what have been some of the tactics or the tools that you've used with your clients to allow them to feel the lesson, to do the reflection, to take the moment, to pause, and to see, what I learned about myself? What will I do differently? Is this an indication I should redirect in some way or make a change within myself?
[00:14:29] Stacey: Yeah. I mean, I think they know they need to make a change. It's why they've come to me. So, they're kind of already ready, willing, and able to do the work. We spend a lot of time when people come to me. It usually kind of falls into some sort of scenario once we've started our work together of the visceral feeling that they're having either in their mind or their body that is stopping them in their tracks from getting to that life that they want.
Okay, so it's either a fear of using their voice. And having the choice to do, so we're showing up, or saying, no, we're not people pleasing or putting themselves first, or it could be crippling anxiety. It could be depression, it could be so many different things and I actually go back and get them to start to reframe from the moment.
So, if I had a client that came in yesterday, and she would say, I'm having a panic attack and I've been in a panic attack for 3 days. And I would say, okay, tell me how you know you're having a panic attack. And they kind of look at me like I have three heads. I'll say, just work with me, take your time. How do you know you're having a panic attack?
Well, I feel it in my throat. Okay, good. So I'm writing that down. Where else do you feel it? My chest, my face, my head, my arms, whatever it is for that person. So then I'll say, what I hear you saying is that you're physically feeling an activation in your system. Is that accurate? And they say, yes. And I say, okay, how would it feel to say I'm having an activation in my system versus saying I'm having a panic attack?
Because when you say you're having a panic attack, a whole story is already wrapped up. There's no positive connotation in I'm depressed I have anxiety or I'm having a panic attack. So sometimes it starts as simple as the language that we use. Because our mind is a sponge, so whatever you say out loud or to yourself, your mind and body are accepted as truth.
They're in harmony with each other. So if you're saying I'm having panic, your body and mind are just going to accept you're in panic. There's not going to be any reason for your vagus nerve to deactivate. in that moment.
One of the tools I'm using with my clients is what I like to coin as intentional thoughts, purposeful thinking, being honesty.
It is based on Don Miguel Ruiz's being impeccable with your word. And it's really about speaking the truth, not a version of the truth to yourself. I hear a lot of, well, my anxiety, I'm like, okay, do you want to have anxiety? Do you want to have that activation in your system?
Well, no. Well, why are you taking ownership of it? And so sometimes that kind of concept alone creates a little bit of a shift where they can start to gain some agency.
[00:17:33] Aneta: Yeah.
[00:17:34] Stacey: over their healing because what I've learned, and this is actually from my own experience of being in and out of therapy from 15 to 35 with no real relief, which doesn't make a lot of sense, is I kind of accepted what I was told. You suffer from anxiety. You have generalized anxiety disorder. You suffer from depression. You come from a long line of people with depression. You come from a long line of people with anxiety. And by the way, that's just your fate. And here's some medication, which I'm not against medication.
I'm just using this as an example for my own. And you'll just learn to live with it. How disempowering is that? Yeah.
[00:18:15] Aneta: It's so disempowering and I agree with you. I just did a post this week about let's stop using the term imposter syndrome, because I feel like when we claim these identities and when we say, well, this is who I am, and we claim these diagnoses or these terms as who we are, it is disempowering versus as you're saying, I wonder why I'm activated.
I wonder why I feel. That I might not have the right qualifications for this role. Let's examine if that is true. And if there's a gap, what can I do about it? And if there isn't, then is it a self-worth issue? Let me examine that and why I might be feeling this way. Just claiming the identities always feels like there is no action to get you out of that place.
[00:19:09] Stacey: Right. It's more like, how can I just learn to live with this? And I have two things I want to share. Can I share a story with you? Then I'll give you another tip tool or way that I work with my clients that seems to be empowering. So I study internal family systems and polyvagal theory and parts work and all this stuff.
And I believe it's a great way for people to understand what's going on inside their systems. So I went out and found my own IFS therapist and I work with him because I can do it for a lot of people, but I need my guide to be on my journey sometimes.
So I go to this guy and I had vetted a couple of people and I had chosen him and he's been a great fit for me. But I knew going into it, he was not on my insurance and I knew how to work with my out-of-network benefits because I've had to do this for years.
So we go and have this great session and at the end of the session, it was the first session. He goes, okay, I just have to have this kind of interesting conversation with you because you're not in my insurance. I'm going to give you a super bill, but on the super bill, I have to put a diagnosis.
Now, I'm not a huge fan of the DSM 5 because I don't think that it's the end-all-be-all, but it is the end-all-be-all in the industry. And so he says, I have to put a diagnosis and a diagnosis code for you to get reimbursed. And I said, I understand. And he said, so what do you want me to put, which I thought was so fascinating. And I said, well if the book was fully vetted and had all the appropriate diagnoses in it, I would say put developmental trauma disorder in it. They won't allow that into the book.
[00:21:03] Aneta: Why not?
[00:21:04] Stacey: Well, that's a whole other story for a whole other podcast, but, the short answer to that is the people that were hired to develop this diagnosis, which is very appropriate and very powerful Vessel Vanderkolk who wrote the body keeps the score was the gentleman that was contracted to write this and it takes years. You do clinical trials and you meet with people and it's a rooted in research and development and they denied it because they said not enough research and development was done.
It was 5 years, and I think, ultimately, this is my personal point of view that the reason why that was not accepted is because there's not a pharmacological component. And it would also then make the book much thinner and smaller. Because I think a lot of the diagnoses that are in that book are actually stemming from developmental trauma disorder.
So it's a little political. So I made the joke, I think it should be developmental trauma disorder, and then I said, but we can't, because that's not in the book, and then I said the next logical thing would be complex PTSD, but we can't use that because that's not in the book either, which is basically what I struggle with.
So, I said, that leaves us anxiety, generalized anxiety disorder or post traumatic stress disorder. And I said, you might as well just put the PTSD because I definitely am walking with that. So, we have a little laugh because to me, it means nothing. It's literally just a bunch of words.
I thought to myself on the drive home, I'm 52. I was in therapy from 15 to 35 on and off. If someone had told me at any time between the age of 15 to 35, that the diagnosis they're giving me is PTSD, and by the way, side note, every single therapist must give a diagnosis, that's how they get paid, and they must use the DSM 5. There's no other book that they can use. It must come from that book. That's the general rule. So if those were the only options, generalized anxiety disorder and PTSD, because the book is limited, I would have then accepted that agreement because I didn't know better. I would have thought the system was righted and not broken the way that it is.
And I would have been walking with this label almost like a ball and chain of, see, I knew it was bad. I knew it was so bad. Is so bad that it resulted in PTSD.
[00:23:42] Aneta: Right.
[00:23:42] Stacey: Whereas the reality is I have a set of symptoms that are in alignment with this particular diagnosis, the way this book is written. And so, therefore, that's going to be the most appropriate one I'm going to give you because I need to get paid.
[00:23:56] Aneta: Unbelievable.
[00:23:58] Stacey: So to your point, if I didn't know what I knew, and anybody can do the research on this themselves, by the way, great places to get information on this is by reading the body keeps the score at, which is by Bessel van der Kolk and another person who's really phenomenally out there talking about this often above and beyond him is Mastin Kipp, K I P P.
He has a great Instagram channel and he's really Very open in dialoguing about this as well, but it's an understanding within the industry. So, that would have shifted the way that I viewed myself and it would have shifted my view of what I'm capable of and what I'm not capable of.
And it would have shifted then the way that I saw people saw me and the way that I navigated the world because we would have aligned an entire story to it.
[00:24:52] Aneta: Right.
[00:24:53] Stacey: I can't do this or I can do this because see, I have PTSD. So we do ourselves a disservice. So I try to work with my clients if they want to, and they don't have to kind of abandon the idea of the language of a label and just be speaking more in truth.
I feel this way and really start to recognize what this way feels like individually for each one and then start to understand why. That's the goal. So as someone that's a trauma recovery coach, I specialize in what's known as ACEs, which are Adverse Childhood Experiences. And I spend a lot of time kind of laying out the puzzle and asking a lot of very unique questions about childhood, no matter how old they are coming to me.
Because we were also thought get over it. Everybody has problems. Everybody had issues. What makes you so special? So we deny ourselves our realities very often, but the reality is, is that all of these experiences are impactful. Anything that leaves us feeling unsafe, unheard, insignificant, unimportant, or not enough, shifts the way that we see ourselves. And then that shifts the way that we interact with the world.
And when we're disconnecting, we're feeling overwhelmed by the world. There's a reason why.
[00:26:26] Aneta: Amazing. So, you work with clients, you coach them. Tell me a little bit about the types of services that you offer and ways that if people are interested in working with you they can.
[00:26:38] Stacey: Yeah, so really at this point, I do just 1 to 1 coaching. And so people work with me individually specific and a la carte to their actual needs. And then I also love speaking. So I go out there and I give as many talks within any kind of community as possible because I have this real deep mission for educating people on this.
I want people to start feeling more agency in their healing. There's nothing I haven't seen or heard. And I've seen and heard it all that somebody cannot recover from. And that's the difference. I'm not here to treat you. I'm here to help you understand that there are a set of emotional wounds That are just simply left unhealed and I can help you heal them now, no matter how old they are.
And when those are healed, you get so much more resources, so much more agency. You feel so much more powerful within your own life. That's the goal. So really I spend most of my time doing this one-to-one coaching. It's either at a conscious level all the time, or I use a hybrid program that I've developed that utilizes what I call conscious-level coaching and coaching done at the subconscious level using rapid transformational therapy. And that's all done through this part of work in this polyvagal lens.
[00:28:08] Aneta: I love that you keep using the words empowered, and agency, reminding people that you don't have to suffer. You don't have to just learn to live with something or get over it. There is something that you can do proactively and manage your health, and your life. So if someone's listening and they've been diagnosed with ADHD or ADD, and they say, I just can't focus because I have ADHD and there's nothing I can do about it. What would you say to them?
[00:28:35] Stacey: So, it's really interesting, and this is kind of a hot topic. So, I might express a point of view that I want to make very clear as my point of view. And I have it based on my own experience inside my own immediate family. And then just everything I've ever delved into from an understanding and a learning perspective.
But when we look at something like ADHD again, let's look at what's happening. So when somebody says to me, I suffer from panic, let's look at what's happening. So when we look at what's happening in the brain of somebody who's been diagnosed with ADHD or ADD, we know that there's a part of the brain that's known as the prefrontal cortex.
That's kind of what I like to call offline or not functioning at its optimum. There are a lot of reasons why our prefrontal cortex does not work optimally, one particular theory, and I'm not saying it's the only reason why, okay? But a lot of times we hone in on it must be genetic and somebody else in your family might have it.
And I'm not saying that that's not accurate because in some cases that will be, but I don't think we're so black and white in this space. So here I'm going to throw a little gray into the mix. Is that when we're growing up? If we are experiencing a series of chronic stressful events, what happens when we experience any kind of stressful event is there's a portion of our brain called the amygdala that gets turned on.
It's almost like a light switch in my opinion, and it's this teeny tiny little part of the brain that gets activated and we can call this our alarm center. But it's basically where fight and flight and freeze and fun come from. So when we get into fight and flight, or we get into freeze and fun, which are not as much discussed which are all coping strategies, they're getting engaged and they're turning on because the amygdala has been activated. When your amygdala is activated, your prefrontal cortex goes offline.
[00:30:42] Aneta: Mm-hmm.
[00:30:44] Stacey: So one theory is that If we are in a scenario in an environment, it could be a mist of dysfunction. It doesn't have to be what people know is like a big T, like aggression and abuse and violence. It could be living in a household where you don't feel seen or you feel invisible or you're having to take on too much of a role at a young age that leaves you feeling overresponsible.
When you know you don't have the skill set for it, I mean, we could get into all kinds of scenarios, but whatever it is that's causing this part of your brain to activate, you're also training this other part of your brain to go offline. They cannot integrate at the same time. So there are a lot of studies coming out now where the question now is, which is it? Is it ADHD or is it unresolved complex PTSD?
So for people who don't know what complex PTSD is, I'm going to make it simple. PTSD is post-traumatic stress disorder. We've all heard about it. We often hear about it with war or for significant situations where we've witnessed something or we've experienced something very traumatic to the system, we can talk about what trauma is, but it's usually somewhat acute. Complex PTSD is a chronic prolonged experience where we're living specifically during our developmental years.
0 to 10, 0 to 12, 0 to 18, what different studies show different things where we're in a chronic prolonged state of coping. Of stress management.
However, that might look for whatever reason. That is causing our brain to have to engage at a level that's not normal. It's like having to run from a bear or having to play dead 24/7.
And we hear people say this I'm just so hyper-vigilant. I've trained myself to always be on the lookout. Well, when those things are happening, there's a part of the brain that goes offline and there's functional MRIs that show. The difference between the brain of somewhat a young person under the age of 18, who's been in this prolonged state of stress versus someone who's not, and you can see that the prefrontal cortex part of the brain is blue and kind of offline versus the parts that are being activated, which are kind of red and hot and yellow.
You can also see other parts of the brain shrinking. We're in other parts of the brain that are growing and enlarging. So something happens within the brain when we're under this prolonged stress. There's a great book about it called Scattered Minds. It's written by Gabor Maté, who's a world-renowned trauma expert. And so for me, it is something I ascribe to. And so when I have a client that is struggling with those things, instead of just trying to put a bandaid on a bullet wound like, well, let's see if this theory fits and how can we retrain your mind to not be so active all the time? How can we retrain our mind to allow that prefrontal cortex to go back to its original blueprint and function at a more optimal level?
If you will, there's no magic bullet. There's no 1 thing I can do to like, I can't cure anybody from ADHD. But again, the agency, when somebody can say, wow, it's not just something I inherited, perhaps. Okay. Because there are a lot of things that happen to people that process the world differently. We talk about neurodivergence.
[00:34:39] Aneta: Yeah.
[00:34:40] Stacey: That causes a lot of extra shame to be laid on these people and these children. Exponentially to people who are neuro normal quote, unquote.
And so that alone is going to cause an extra activation of these parts of the brain that then again, force these other parts of the brain to go offline. So it's kind of a complex conversation to be had, but it's 1 that I have with my clients a lot because I see it a lot.
[00:35:07] Aneta: Yeah. I love that. And I feel like if anyone has been carrying this label around, it should feel very encouraging to know that everything you said makes sense. So I guess the question too is how long, and I know each case is different, but what have you seen in terms of if someone does work with you and they want to start building up their prefrontal cortex and get it online again so that they are making critical decisions? Maybe their focus is better. They're thinking more clearly. What have you seen in terms of what I mean, on average, if there is an average?
[00:35:40] Stacey: There's not an average and I don't work that way. Because I don't promote myself as an ADHD specialist, but I do promote myself as somebody who is very well-versed in this kind of theory on ADHD. But look, the reality is, is we want to try to keep our amygdala as regulated as possible.
And our amygdala is going to be more regulated when we have more of a realistic view of the core beliefs that we're using to live our life. So before I had mentioned, I wanted to share this other tool.
I have very often a bunch of laminated sheets in my office with Expo markers, and one of them is universal core beliefs. And they're categorized in groupings of these core beliefs kind of are rooted in helplessness. These core beliefs are rooted in abandonment, rejection, this, that, and other things.
And when I'm sitting and working with a client, what I want to do is get to the core of what's driving everything here. So I work with a lot of women and I very much hear a commonality of this extreme people pleasing this inability to say no and set boundaries deep prioritizing their selves.
Often seeking external validation, this high level of perfectionism. All lumped up together. We call it burnout. I see it all the time. Getting to your point of the prefrontal cortex. If our amygdala is engaged with shame all the time, or fear of disconnection, which is what's going to cause this person this prioritize everybody else.
All of these things are rooted in fear of abandonment, fear of rejection, fear of disconnection. We want to make sure we're secure and safe and people like us. If we can feel secure and safe in who we are, that amygdala is not going to be engaged as much.
[00:37:35] Aneta: Absolutely.
[00:37:36] Stacey: So getting back to the neuroscience of it, of what is driving the ship. And why did we end up coming up with these core beliefs? Anyway, what was happening early on in life shifted the lens through which we were seeing everything and not feeling safe and secure. And then developing these habits that by the way, for women get very well praised, right?
So it's a whole shift, but as the shift is happening we're kind of going back to self the way I see it, because no one's born that way, by the way, they're all learned. Survival tactics, when we can kind of get closer back to self and allow these other parts of us to kind of retire, change their role a little bit.
We become more regulated. We hear these terms all the time, regulated, dysregulated. We become more regulated because the truths that we're giving ourselves are more on par with reality. And then as we're doing that, we're now going to be rewiring, refiring in our brain very differently. So it's like not this one, it's a very holistic approach and it's so unique to every single person.
But when they hear it and see it, the love, I can't tell you how many times people I'll say to them, how do you feel after this first session? Then they'll say hopeful versus helpless. We're hopeless. And I haven't felt that in a long time. That's the goal.
[00:39:05] Aneta: Yeah. That's beautiful. And I love that you are giving people a sense of hope and empowering them and agency back to living the quality of life that they're looking for. So if someone would like to work with you, what is the best way for them to get ahold of you?
[00:39:21] Stacey: Honestly, either my website. Which is flipyourmindset.com that is the best place and I offer a consultation there that's at a very reduced rate. And so I have that all over my site. My consultations are 75 minutes to 90 minutes. I'm not a firm believer in my particular space of a quick 15 or 20-minute consult because I'm working with people who are ready to do the work.
I want them to know what it's like to work with me and, I think a full session for me, which is 75 to 90 minutes is required. So I offer that consultation at a very reduced rate. So that's the best way or follow me on Instagram and DM me. Honestly, I get DMS every day from people and then I can listen a little bit on the DM of what's going on and then decide if a consultation's right for them or not.
[00:40:16] Aneta: Perfect. And you have a podcast as well.
[00:40:19] Stacey: I do.
[00:40:20] Aneta: Yeah. Tell us a little bit about that and what people can find on your podcast.
[00:40:24] Stacey: As you can tell, I'm pretty passionate about people gaining agency over their mental health. And as I mentioned earlier, I think we did grow up in this generation of people holding on to their stories because we were told not to share them. But I also believe that we're hardwired for connection as humans. And so when we've been taught to disconnect, when we need connection, the most, it's part of what's keeping people so stuck. When we can share our stories, there's a level of weight that gets lifted.
So part of the podcast is sharing stories, as you mentioned in yours, where I interview people who have gone through great adversity and have figured out that gift in the challenge throughout the way and are ready and willing to talk about it. And the goal of that is so the listener can say, that is my story. Or that sounds similar to my story. And maybe I don't need to have shame wrapped up in this. And maybe I can find somebody to share it with for the first time, whether it's someone in their trust circle, or maybe it's a guest.
So part of that is that Hope Merchant piece of showing somebody a vision of themselves having gotten to where they want to get number 1. But I also have experts in the trauma space. To jam out about trauma and what it is and what it isn't and educate people because I do believe part of the problem in the mental health space now is it's costly and it's not available and accessible to everyone.
That's a real problem. So I have a mission of providing several low-cost and no-cost resources. So the podcast is 1 of them. I've written an ebook. I have several workshops that are either free or very low cost and it's a way for somebody to start to dive in and learn a little bit more if they are not in a position to be able to invest with a therapist or a coach.
[00:42:31] Aneta: Stacey, I celebrate you for all the amazing work that you're doing and how wonderful going back to that earlier version of you who said, you know what, it's not too late for me to make a change. I see that I have a passion and a gift and you're using it to do this beautiful work in the world. So thank you for that. And thank you for coming on today's show. And I do have a final question for you, which is, what does it mean to you to live the width of your life?
[00:42:57] Stacey: I think it's everything we just discussed. It's realizing to your point it's never too late. I mean, here I was saying to my husband at age 48, I need to have this up and running by the time I'm 50.
[00:43:10] Aneta: Yeah.
[00:43:10] Stacey: And because I've got another God willing, let's say 30 years of good time ahead of me. And there's a lot of impact I can make and I can choose to do it how I want to do it. And it was never too late. So I want people to understand your point, it's never too late to heal these wounds. I've had clients as young as 19 and as old as 68. And each one of them walks away feeling reconnected to themselves.
That's the goal when we can become more reconnected to ourselves. That's when you're living that authentic life. That's when you can find yourself more grounded in flow. And you also have a greater capacity for the peaks and valleys of life.
[00:43:54] Aneta: Thank you so much, Stacy, for your time today. And we will include all the details in the show notes. And for everyone listening, please take advantage of the great opportunity to have that consultation if that's something that speaks to you.
[00:44:07] Stacey: Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it.
[00:44:09] Aneta: Thank you for listening to today's episode. If today's conversation inspired you to dream again, break out of your comfort zones, or reflect on what it means to you to live more fully, then please follow this podcast because every week you'll hear more stories from people just like you who took imperfect action towards their goals, created more joy and are living the life that they always dreamt of living.