5 Star Wellbeing Podcast

Elizabeth Louis - how to change your thoughts and change your life

October 17, 2022 Season 3 Episode 51
5 Star Wellbeing Podcast
Elizabeth Louis - how to change your thoughts and change your life
Show Notes Transcript

Liz is an Executive Performance Coach, who specialises in neuropsychotherapy.  She's on the show today to help us all increase our cognitive awareness so that we can live more of the life we want. 

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Music by Ian Hildebrand

Arwen Bardsley:

All right. Welcome, everybody. Welcome back to another episode. I'm really delighted today to have Elizabeth Louis as my guest, Liz, as I'm going to call her because that sounds a lot more friendly to me. Liz is an executive performance coach who specializes in neuropsychotherapy. Liz had a traumatic childhood that she disregarded for many years as an adult and went off into television production as a career. But it was whilst filming a wildlife documentary off the coast of South Africa that Liz realized the truth about her childhood and decided to heal herself. And to help herself become the best person that she could be. Two postgraduate psychology degrees later, Liz now works with Type A leaders to help them increase their cognitive awareness to advance their careers and themselves. She also hosts mental health boot camps, online courses, and mental health podcast, a blog and lots more. So there is so much we can get into with that, Liz, I do just like to start with a bit of background about you in terms of why you are where you are now. And you know, your what, what the origins of you are that if we can go into a bit more detail from what I've just said, and especially, I would love to know, about this realization that you had whilst filming the wildlife documentary, how did that come about? That would be wonderful.

Liz Louis:

Yes, yes. Well, thank you for such a beautiful introductory too, I'll start backwards, because the realization and the why kind of go together to a degree. I laugh, because I was that I moved out when I was 16. And from 16, until probably 27-28, I moved every two weeks to nine months. And so I kind of have this joke of I was just like running away from my life problems. And I'm moved What, like 10,000 miles away to South Africa, thinking, I guess I could escape my problems to a degree you can't they, they follow you. They definitely follow you. And it was there in South Africa, as I was listening to my mates. And my peers in the production camp, just talk about their childhood, because a lot of us were really young. And I was like, Holy crap, my childhood was not normal, and was super toxic and traumatic, because you don't know what you don't know. And so I kind of joke and I say God, like ripped the curtain from my psyche. He was like, You're gonna deal with this stuff. 10,000 miles away right here right now. And so that's when I realized, like, I don't want to have the trauma that I've had, I want to get over it. And so I started therapy again. But everyone was just so like amazed to my childhood because my brother is a psychopath and tried killing me my whole life. I'm not kidding when I say that. And I was like, Cool. My childhood was traumatic. I don't need someone to confirm that I now see that I want to know how to get free from the complex PTSD that I ended up being diagnosed with. I want to know how to like break free from my past and live in the present and create a better future and no therapist could tell me how to do that. And I went to a handful, and I'd been in therapy since I was 11. And I just decided as egotistical as it sounds, I'll just get my own degree in psychology and fix myself since nobody knows how to do it. And then one thing led to another and I started learning about neuroplasticity, and the brain and neuroscience, and psychology. And I just used me as a guinea pig. And I quickly started to transform myself in 2017, I had no immune system. They told me to go and live in like a bubble, like bubble boy from and I was like no that's not happening. And within like, I think four or five months, I walked out of an autoimmune disease. I had a better immune immune system, just from doing neurological psychological work in my in my mind and just implementing and transforming. Yeah, it was it was insane. I mean, there was definitely a lot of hard days where, you know, thank goodness for a support system and a puppy dog that loves you.

Arwen Bardsley:

Yeah, absolutely. And thank goodness, you got a good immune system before we had a global pandemic as well.

Liz Louis:

Yes, yeah, I know timing can be can be one thing for sure. And then it was funny because in grad school for my first degree, I ended up just being naturally good, because my specialty was in my subspecialty was coaching psychology. So I ended up being good as a coach and my professors just automatically gave me some of their overflow to work with. So I never intended to do this for a living. It just kind of fell that way. And I love it so much. I love reading. I love learning about it, that it's just huge passion. And I just believe you can make the impossible possible because I've seen it. And we hear stories that do it. And at the end of the day, faith and fear are equal and substance. So let's give it all the faith and none of the fear.

Arwen Bardsley:

Oh, I love that. And so before that, how did you Why television as well, I'm just curious, got nothing to do with this interview. But I just wondered how you got into that?

Liz Louis:

Yeah, for sure. Um, so I grew up with full house. And I didn't understand why Mary Kate and Ashley gotta start working. And I come in. So I've always kind of had an entreprenuer mind. I had my first business when I was six, and then 10, and then 13, and so forth. And when I was 15, I became a professional model. And then I went a little bit behind the camera. I just always loved acting. So originally, it was always for acting and being in front. But you know, people treat you like crap. Sometimes when you're in front of the camera, and there's a lot of misogynistic people out there. And so I kind of got tired of it. And I didn't, I need to challenge personally. So then I decided, well, I'll just go behind the camera, because I had like, I mean, I started doing professional theater training at like, eight years old. And so I was like, well, I'll just take what I know. And I'll put it in the back. But by the time I left production, I just didn't like how America was doing things in Hollywood. Personally, I just, I thought that there was a lot of corruption. And I didn't want to partake in it. I mean, like, I think 75% of television shows today, show violence and only and 60% of those 75% violent shows don't show any consequences for the actions. And yet we're like, why do we have a violence issue in America? I'm like, well, there you have it, dudes.

Arwen Bardsley:

Yeah, okay. Oh, interesting. Thank you for that little aside. So I really need to start with the question about what is neuro psychotherapy, obviously, how does it different differ from standard therapy. And you know, and you've mentioned that you're, you just got a natural ability at coaching and counseling people. So I'm just wondering if you can tell us a bit about what your approach is in therapeutic setting that makes you different,

Liz Louis:

for sure, for sure. So and I'm going to say this in very simplistic terms, too. So there's always the exception to the rule. So traditional therapists typically focus on your emotions and your feelings. Where as a neuro psychotherapist is in the psychotherapy setting is going to focus on your emotions and your feelings, but also your brain behavior connection. And so when I have a client, I listen very carefully to the words that they're saying and how they're thinking, because actually will tell me what parts of their brain are overdeveloped or under poverished. And so I want to help them have a healthy neurology because that can lead to a healthier psychology. It's not everything, but it's part of it. And so it just helps me figure out where we need to, honestly, I'll say it this way, it helps me find their, their core root issue at a faster level. Because I know what we need to do. For instance, if you're speaking a lot of fear based language, then I know most likely you're living in your limbic system. And there's just certain words that over the years of doing this, that kind of tell me what you most likely struggle with. For instance, if you have I think it's I'm gonna get this confused right now. I think it's your, when your right side of your prefrontal cortex is over developed might be it might be left, for some reason I'm drawing a blank, that typically means you have more of avoidance behavior, which means you're going to struggle more with depression. And so humans need goals, but we need positive goals. So then it's like, Okay, let me help you feed those neurons on the opposite side. So we can have that ability to have more of a balanced healthy psychology. And it's really, I don't know how it is in Australia, but in America, it's disgusting. What therapists learn in grad school, they don't learn enough to really be an adequate therapist. It's, it breaks my little heart, to be completely honest. But there's things that a therapist can do if they're, if they're trained in the brain. And if they also are passionate, and they can do the research themselves of we're just having a conversation with a client, you'll actually start to rewire their brain clients not going to know it sounds like I'm brainwashing them. I don't mean it in a negative sense. But it's it's the quicker we can create new neural connections and start to stop starve or block the old neurons, the faster we're gonna get that transformation. And that's where my clients get transformation within about three sessions.

Arwen Bardsley:

Wow, that's so quick.

Liz Louis:

Right? Right. You just go right to the A lot of people like to deal with symptoms when you've got to go to the core issue.

Arwen Bardsley:

Yep. Yeah. And that is the same in any health or wellness, you know, setting isn't it? It's and Unfortunately, our whole culture and society and we are the same as America in this way is, you know, we all want a magic pill or want to just be able to you You know, take that magic pill or you know, it's not necessarily a pill, but you know, I just want to be able to do one session, and then I'm better. And, you know, if you've, if you've been dealing with something, or something's had an impact on you for the whole of your life, and you cannot expect that it's just going to take, you know, one little thing, one little pill, one little, whatever, and everything will be different. But if you're getting to the root cause of that, then you can, you know, cut it off, destroy it, replace it at that, at that level.

Liz Louis:

Exactly, exactly. It's, you know, and it's effort at the end of the day, we just have to hone in our effort and just kind of let go the outcome sometimes.

Arwen Bardsley:

Yeah. So in that situation, where you've worked out that somebody is working from a place of I can't remember what you just said, fear or you know, they need positive goals. So can you just like talk us through an example of what a scenario might be?

Liz Louis:

Yeah, I'll just use myself for some of this not for one of them. So there's something called a limbic loop. So depending on when you've had trauma, your brain can be wired differently, because until you're about 11, you can't think abstract and your brain doesn't fully mature until age 25. So there's lots of time we have as young ones that unfortunately can scar us and cause obstacles for our future. My father died right after my seventh birthday. And then most of my family except for my mom, and my brother died afterwards, right after my dad died, I was going to funeral that every week, then it went to every month. And then every year, I mean, it was like death, death, death, death death. Now, my dad had me when he was 61 years old. So it might be important to understand that much of my family was older too. Not that it matters when you're seven, but just for context. And when my dad died, my brother started becoming really violent and abusive towards me, he was kind of like my protector. So what we want to have happen is prefrontal cortex needs to wire to your limbic system. Unfortunately, because I was constantly experiencing hardship, you could say or suffering at such a young age, my brain was so wired the limbic system, the prefrontal cortex. And what that means is that you're always in a fight, flight, or freeze or fine type of mentality. So I lived in my closet as a little girl, because it was like the safest place for me. And I could listen for when the like insanity of my brother was going to come about. And so when I moved out at 16, I was like the slightest little noise. I was like, Where do I need to go? Where do I need to hide? Right? So I was always really vigilant, like hyper vigilant, could hear conversations across the hall was always on edge just could not get out of it. And so that limbic loop is called. So a limbic loop is kind of where you're constantly on rumination, right? You're always thinking about those past events, you can't let them go. They're kind of injuring your psyche, even at an unconscious level. So you might not be always consciously aware, but you're sweating a lot. You're anxious, you're right, there's somatic sensations that we can have. And this was actually what was destroying my immune system, because fear is the number one killer at the end of the day. I mean, it's insane. What fear can do. And so when I started to learn about the limbic system, and the thing called a limbic loop, where you're just stuck in this fight or flight freeze, because your limbic system is what codes all the information, if you will, that comes into your mind. I learned techniques, and they're so simplistic, that it feels like they wouldn't work. They're so simplistic to help me get out of that limbic system so I could breathe, and so my anxiety could go down. Because what people forget is thinking actually changes your neurology. It's crazy, right? And so the, the the key to neuroplasticity is repetition, changing your vocabulary, and literally thinking new things at the end of the day, which is a little bit easier said than done. But what I would do is I would have to start to become really conscious. For instance, if I heard a noise, or even perfume, perfume used to like make me have a sore throat. So multiple chemical sensitivity is very normal, when you have limited or trauma issues. And so like perfume would give me a sore throat and I remember one day, I was in a yoga class, and I was like, Okay, I'm gonna stay here and just like almost like exposure therapy with the perfume. But then you do this where you say, hey, brain, you're sending me false information. The perfume is not impacting me, I'm safe, and I'm healthy. And I'm good. I'm doing things differently, right? And you just say that over and over. Sometimes it's like every nanosecond because your amygdala, when it feels a threat can override everything within a nanosecond. I mean, your amygdala is really fast to get on top of things. So sometimes it's you catch it and you work backwards. And if you've ever been in a conversation where there's been like a loud boom or something, you kind of forget what you were talking about. And once you realize everything was safe, that's kind of what you're doing it same with chiropractic right it's interrupt patterns, interrupt. patterns, interrupt patterns, interrupt patterns, that's kind of the key. So you can tie in like physiology in the sense of snapping or hugging yourself, just to kind of bring in an additional support system. Because when you can bring your emotions, your physiology and your psychology together, typically change happens at a faster rate. And so it's just changing the way you think, to be more of what you want to see at the end of the day, because going back to faith and fear are kind of equal in substance. When we reject what we don't want to see, that's fear, when we protect what we do want to see, that's faith, if you will. And so it's constantly changing the dialogue and reminding yourself, you're safe. Assuming you're truly in a place where you're safe. Obviously, if you're not, it's not going to work. But that's just one technique. Another technique going to the avoidance versus so we, you either are going to create avoidant goals or you're going to create positive goals. People who are going to create avoidant goals are going to tell me a lot of what they don't like, they're going to speak a lot of negativity, a lot of noes. A lot of not a lot of I can't type of things. And so an example of this would be for an avoidant goal would be I'm moving to the country to get away from the noise, right, you're motivated by what you don't want to deal with a positive goal would be, I'm moving to the country for peace and quiet. So it's a shift. And it sounds like I'm splitting hairs. But it's the difference between a healthy and unhealthy psychology. It's also the difference from pessimism and optimism, which are basic things we need. Optimism is what we need to have if we're going to encourage our hope, and continue to grow. And so those are just two very simple examples of what I was sharing there.

Arwen Bardsley:

And yeah, so it's really about the language in a way, isn't it that you're using? And so when you're saying this stuff, are you, you know, do you need to be saying it out loud? Or is it just repeating it in your mind silently?

Liz Louis:

That's gonna be a little bit dependent on the person. This is where I say, bring your unique self to the table. The first thing is you got to be willing, you got to have an open mind, to think and see things differently and try things differently. When you can I say do it out loud, because it's something really powerful if you're like, inner ear, hearing your own voice. But at the same time, like if you're in the middle of a work meeting, or in your kids school play, you can't be like, Hey, Brian, I'm safe. I'm safe, like, right, you can't do that. And so there's things that like you have to be willing to manipulate and kind of recalibrate when the moment arises. I mean, I should have died from an eating disorder. And I remember a few years ago, I was on a walk with my husband. And it sounds so silly, but it's normal for people who've struggled with eating disorders, my like, my sports bra was so tight and so uncomfortable. It was making me feel fat, as silly as that sounds. And I just remember under my breath in the middle of a conversation with him, I was like, Hey, pay body, hey, brain, you're safe, you're sending me false information. Everything is okay, I'm not fat, I'm good. I'm thin, I'm working out I'm doing the things I need to do. And it's, it's almost like parenting that inner child inside of you. Because your brain can send you false information. This is why we cannot fully trust our feelings, unfortunately.

Arwen Bardsley:

And yeah, it's so with the finger snapping? Is there something that you can do instead of that, that, you know, like, if you are in your kids school play that it's not going to be. So obvious, there are other sorts of physical things you can do.

Liz Louis:

For sure. And you don't even have to snap where you like make a sound too. But this is where again, bring your unique, unique personality to it. Some people like to touch their hearts, some people kind of like to like cross their arms and like hold themselves to a degree. You could take steps backwards, you could stay take steps forward, sideways. I mean, it's just any any motion that could help you create a more of a disturbance in that pattern, if that makes sense. So we think in association, so we're just trying to create more of association. So like when you get this we go this way versus going that old way if that makes sense.

Arwen Bardsley:

Right? Okay. Okay. Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. So, yeah, I read a statistic on your website, which I have heard before that we think about 95% the same things every day. And then 80% of our thoughts are negative, which is just incredible. Why is it that our brains develop like this? And and how can we use neuroplasticity to our advantage to try and reduce that 95%? Is it possible to do that?

Liz Louis:

Oh, yeah, for sure. And I actually read an article a few weeks ago that this blows my mind. You can have one to 99% of your thoughts being negative, like Oh, my goodness, that's insane. No, break that right now. You know, neuroscience is still a very new science. Believe it or not, the brain is extremely complex. We know that thoughts typically are Are sparked due to external stuff. But that external thing you see can spark an unconscious memory at the end of the day. And humans are creatures of habits at the end of the day, we don't want to admit that. Just like we have a default mode to the grocery store. Typically, the default mode of thinking, and perspective is something that we can't clearly define in psychology, because however you make meaning out of life, is going to be influenced on how you think especially those core beliefs if we use the cognitive behavior therapy model. So I don't fully know why we are this way, I will do more research on that to learn to be completely honest. Can you change? Absolutely, one thing I encourage people to do is get clear on what do you want to think I like to tell people to have like seven buckets of thinking. And what I would do is like, is this thought loving? Is it true? Is it worthy of praise? Is it encouraging and kind, I would just kind of, I wanted to always be that person. When you were in my space, you just felt like love coming from me. And acceptance and psychological safety, for sure. And so I created buckets that kind of honored those that reality that I was trying to do. And I remember I would go on walks or I'd be thinking, I'd be like, ooh, does that thought, honor any of these buckets? If not, you got to get out of here. And unfortunately, a lot of people are mindless with their thinking, like, I don't know if you've done this, but I'll admit that I've done this, I used to like drive down the road and like killing off my whole family in my mind. And I'm like, how would I survive? What would I do? You know, like, kind of creating worst case scenario for fun. And I stopped doing that, you know, and it's just like what check in what are you thinking, mindful? Being leveraging mindfulness with your thoughts is so important, you have to start to grow awareness? And what are you thinking? Is it going to resonate to what you want? Because we've proven in neuroscience, and the funniest thing to me is, most religions say the same thing too is, you work to create your most dominant thought. So if you don't like your life, your thoughts got you there at the end of the day, I mean, yes, there's the exception to the rule of No, you can't control where you're born, what color you are, or what have you. But at the end of the day, where you are currently, your thoughts most likely got you there to a degree. So I tell people, especially my clients, when they first come see me, write about your ideal self, remove all constraints, time, money skills, write it in the present tense, and read it every single day, because what we found, and this, again, shows you the power of your thoughts is if you intentionally read over how you want your life to be what you want to think about, and you do that for an hour a day, accumulatively for 180 days straight, so six months, by the end of that 180 days, you'll be 90% there or have more clarity on the next steps to continue to get there because some of the stuffs obviously gonna be a little complicated. And it's insane just from thinking that most people focus on what they don't want versus what they do want. Which is why, you know, I think we've personally positive positive thinking that's toxic. I don't even want to remember what is called toxic positive thinking or something annoys me because I'm like, You can't blame a person for being overly positive. I mean, perspectives perspective, we can't really say it's right or wrong. It seems like there's a lot of pessimists who've gotten upset at the positive thinking at the end of the day.

Arwen Bardsley:

Well, it sounds like we're all you know, pessimists. By nature, for some reason that we need to find it. I mean, I guess it's all comes back to, you know, caveman days of, we kind of were in so much more physical danger, then. Not everyone, but a lot of us are these days, and the brain just developed from that place of, you know, checking that everything's okay constantly, and fearing everything, because we didn't know where the next saber toothed Tiger might come around the corner from.

Liz Louis:

Well, interestingly enough, too, we're actually wired for love. That's why it feels good. That's our default way. It's being wired for love. And if you kind of think about in this perspective, if we were wired for fear, it would feel better. And there's two types of fear. I like to tell people it's like the God given fear, like the saber toothed Tiger, versus the you know, your manufacturing the fear, because it's not really there. But it's, it's being projected, based off of your past if you if you will. One question I like to tell people which might be beneficial here is like if I could strip away all your fear, all the pain, all the negativity, all the rejection, all the shame, all the guilt, every bad thing that impacted you, who would you be?

Arwen Bardsley:

Yeah, that's a really good question, isn't it? And so just going back to what you said before about, so then, therefore, if you write down will, you know, who do I want to be write some piece about? This is who I would be if I had no constraints. And you mentioned reading that for an hour a day and I'm like, well nobody's going to do that. So what what would you say is the, you know, manageable way to do that kind of thing.

Liz Louis:

Yes, associations create associations to help you a remember when to do it. Because you have time, it's just are you willing to do it and it can be 15 minutes here, five minutes, they're two minutes, they're three minutes, they're like, just find a way. One thing that I did and still do is I like to exercise. So I would do it when I was exercising, Labyrinth walks are a great time to do it. Because walks just naturally create increased creativity. And so it's a perfect time for you to think on those things as well. And also bring in that visualization piece. And labyrinth walks are where you just don't have to pay attention to your path, because it's so common sense to you. So if you don't have an actual labyrinth, just find a path in your neighborhood, memorize it, don't think about it. I used to write it on notecards, like five of them that I really wanted to like Master and memorize because it might take some time to memorize your list too. And like, if I was in a doctor's office waiting, I would read it, then if I was in the carpool line, I'd read it then I would record myself saying them all and I would play it as I would drive to a stop. So it was all like how can I quickly program my brain? Because it is true. I mean to everything we do as humans, we have to learn we, we have to be taught these things. So find your way of learning and pay attention to it. I will tell you in the mornings prayer is really important to me personally. So in the mornings, I kind of bring it into my prayer time of just thanking my God for all that he's bringing me and you know, letting it go, because kind of going back to just how fear works. You know, when we're constantly in fear it's because we're really living in the future in the past, and we're missing the present. If you can learn how to hone your focus to be in the present, because it's the only time you exist at the end of the day. It's amazing the amount of stress that just naturally falls off of you. Of course it is you have to practice this because it's it's a focus you have to learn and practice. But that would even be a great time of just like, Okay, I'm going to take five minutes of mindful meditation and just recite and envision my list and anytime a worry or the future or the past comes into mind. I'm just gonna let it go like a gray cloud.

Arwen Bardsley:

And, but what if what's coming to me is, yeah, I'm reading this list, or I'm listening to this list if I've recorded it. And I reckon I'm still gonna get those little monkey mind thoughts coming and going. No, that's not that's rubbish. Don't be silly. So what do you do about that?

Liz Louis:

That's brilliant. I'm so happy. You said that. That is a great opportunity then to put on the Sherlock Holmes mindset I like to say, which is just being that detective if you're not familiar with Sherlock Holmes, and just being very curious and looking more at data and the big picture versus the, that small little weed, if you will, and exploring, okay, what's making me not believe this is possible, because maybe it's your low self esteem coming to the table, great, here's an opportunity for you to start being intentional about working on your self esteem, go get a coach, go get a best friend, go get a therapist, go get a book, whatever you need, go get it and be willing to do it. Or maybe it's gonna take some time to build up your faith. Maybe you really believe you could have that in the in the, like, 25 years from now. But you don't think it's possible right now? Well, are you willing to maybe learn the skills? Or do the things that are in your control now to to grow there? Do you really want it? Do you want it for vain reasons? I mean, I have a lot of clients who just want to be a billionaire, just to flick off a person who hurt them in first grade. I mean, sorry, that's being vain. Get over yourself.

Arwen Bardsley:

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Love it. And another question that I had was, I know, I've heard before that listening to things like right before you're going to sleep. So if you recorded your voice saying all this stuff, and you listen to it right before you went to sleep, that that's a really powerful time for your brain to receive information. Is that true?

Liz Louis:

It is, and I'm so happy you said that because actually forgot this fun fact. So we think in two different ways sensory based thinking and language based thinking. Language Based is what you and I are doing right now by verbally talking. An example of sensory based thinking is when you like slam on brakes, because you see a red light or a child across the street, right? You don't, you don't go there. Hey, Liz, you see a child, you should maybe slow down, right? You just do it right before you're even aware. And your sensory based thinking is really connected to your unconscious mind. And it's four times faster than your conscious mind. And it never shuts off. And so when you read or study right before you go to bed, you're still chewing on it as you're sleeping because you've actually kind of put it more in your sensory based thinking. It's like if you've ever woken in the middle of the night and you're like, oh, I have that idea now or Oh, I get it. It's because your sensory based thinking was still working as you were Sleeping, or if you've ever like woken up and you're like, Oh, now I understand why I was upset about whatever happened yesterday, it's because your brain was still working on it at the end of the day. And the cool thing to hear is when you have a clear goal, and you're really putting effort to that goal, whatever you're spending your time and infusing at night, you're just going to help kind of encourage getting that goal by just kind of training your reticular activity system, which brings in our stimuli, or I'm sorry, which highlights whatever we tell it, because it's just too much stimuli in the world. And so there's so much benefit of doing that 100%, even just having random things placed in your office or in your car that is empowering messages, I mean, that eventually gets into your psyche.

Arwen Bardsley:

So really, because I know a lot of people like I use affirmation in my work, you know, whenever I'm, you know, doing a healing session with a client, we set a goal for the session, you know, what is it that you want to use the energy for today, and then at the end, I will send them away with this goal, or intention, and suggest to them that they use that as an affirmation. So, but I know that a lot of people, and to be honest, for myself, personally, I can find it a bit. I don't know twee or something. And obviously, there's something I've got to work on there. But you're really saying that affirmation is very powerful. I mean, that's basically what this whole, you know, you write this thing about how you want to be and that is a massive big affirmation, isn't it?

Liz Louis:

For sure. In fact, I tell my clients, if you write in the present tense, you should have a tremendous list of I am statements. And I agree on your comments. Sometimes I'm like, you know, and it's funny, though, in my experience, what I'm learning is a lot of the things that you think wouldn't work, work, and the things that you think would work don't work. So it seems like the world is really backwards. And one thing that I really am seeing more and more in science is proving it. The spirituality practices have always proven it, which is you have to believe you have it before you'll see it. It feels awkward. I remember. So in 2019, I was dying from a weird brain condition. I was on the way to John Hopkins, which is like an elite Hospital in America. Because no one could tell me what was wrong with me. Um, it felt literally like my brain was on fire. I just wanted to like cut my skull off and like pour cold water on it. And it would be excruciating how to shut down my business in 2019. For a year, I lost so much weight, it was awful. And I just started doing all this research and my faith and so forth. And just like, you know, I'll do anything, I was so desperate for healing. And I just remember starting to behave and act as if I was healed. As if I was fully healed, even though I did not feel fully healed, healed. And some days it was hard, because you have to essentially go against your bodily sensations, which just makes you feel freaking crazy. And go no, I'm great. I'm awesome. Like, I would go up the stairs like pretending I was with my friends like with a cup of wine laughing like, Oh, I'm great. I feel fine. Like it sounds so silly and stupid. But over time, I ended up walking completely out of that brain condition within like, I think 90 days of being really focus of reciting affirmations reciting prayer, going against it doing everything that was kind of creating the, the pain I would like, just do it more. It sounds super weird. I know. And I just kept kept believing it was going to be gone. And in time it completely dissipated. And I have no idea what it was. Don't care to know. But I I was just like, I can't do this because John Hopkins is also quite quite expensive after a while

Arwen Bardsley:

Sure. Wow, that's incredible story. Okay, so there was something I was gonna ask you, then it's gone anyway, might come back. But I know that I did myself your thinking traps quiz that is on your website. So I just wondered if you can perhaps talk a bit about what thinking traps are? Are there some that are more common than others? And if anything comes up, I can tell you what my now.

Liz Louis:

Oh, sure. Do you want to start with that when

Arwen Bardsley:

you weren't? Sure. Well, we'll actually why don't you just say in general, what thinking traps are first?

Liz Louis:

Sure. So a lot of therapy doesn't work. Cognitive behavior therapy has been proven to be the most effective at a 70% success rate. So like hold that loosely. And what the cognitive hypnotherapy says is that we all have automatic thoughts that just come to us like They're just reactionary. And when there are negative automatic thoughts, they're called cognitive distortions is the jargon. The slang can be thinking traps, thinking, thinking, toxic thinking. And so it's your dysfunctional way of thinking that's automatic. And there's about 17 categories, you could say, like all or nothing, shooting yourself, which is just fun to say, I'll be honest. discounting the positives, mislabeling labeling thoughts are true. And so it's just kind of more of an overarching umbrella. And then you can figure out which one you struggle with the most at the end of the day. We all have cognitive distortions, and no one makes sense with 95% of our thoughts being the same every single day and 80% being negative. So this is like no harm. But you're if you start to get aware of what your automatic thinking patterns are, you can actually start to identify your core beliefs, which are at the end of the day, the route to those automatic thoughts, which is really helpful. And if our thoughts are gonna be the same every single day, well, might as well get ahead of it, instead of being super surprised by it. And I have seen a commonality. So I do, I used to do psychometric testing. I'm a personality theories expert. And so I started to quantify, like, what my clients were saying in their results with their personality type, or their temperament type. And so if you're highly conscientious meaning like you, like you like rules, you're moralistic, you probably are going to struggle with perfectionism, and you're gonna have a lot of should and all or nothing thinking tied to it. I've seen yet where there's you may. That was a big one. That was a big one. And I've also seen where, like, labeling or mislabeling. So essentially, you know, you meet a person, once they do something, and bam, you've just given them a label finite, is really popular with certain personalities, that are a little bit more dominant and aggressive and almost critical sounding at times. discounting the positives is also a really big one that can come across for people who struggle with rigid rules or might struggle with a little bit of pessimism and depression, as well, because they're focused focusing on how you know that one thing was off, right? Like you got all A's but this one class, you got it. You got an A minus, so you must be a loser now.

Arwen Bardsley:

Yeah, good. Yeah. That wasn't one of mine.

Liz Louis:

And then I will say if only if you struggle with jealousy and bitterness.

Arwen Bardsley:

If only I found that one Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So my other ones were blame was an 8.5. And emotional reasoning. Now, that was one that I'd love you to talk a bit more about.

Liz Louis:

Emotional reasoning is essentially where you, whatever that emotion that's kind of over overwhelming you is how you make decisions. So we really need to be making decisions as with our values, because our feelings and our emotions can change so much. And so emotions are just kind of like where you are consumed by your emotional thoughts, and you use them to make decisions or judgments about a situation if that makes sense.

Arwen Bardsley:

Oh, yeah. And blame that might have been when you lost me?

Liz Louis:

Oh, yes, blaming. Yeah. Blaming is a fun one. I've struggled with that one to blaming is sometimes when we essentially we blame other people for for our issues, right? Like you, and it's not even other people. Sometimes it can be blaming yourself. And it's really denying your role in the situation like maybe you say, if only younger, younger, I would have a better job. So you're almost making excuses to things versus taking accountability. Now, sometimes there is no accountability, but it's wanting to find an objective, concrete reason to why things aren't going the way you would prefer. Does that make sense? Like we need that concrete reasoning.

Arwen Bardsley:

So something that you said before, we even got into the thinking traps, but then it's come back up again, with what you've said there is. I guess my question is around honoring when you are feeling a negative emotion, like, you know, you are feeling angry, or you are feeling sad, you know, I do think it's important for people to give those so called negative emotions, their space as well. So how do you kind of balance and juggle that so that you don't, I guess, get trapped in in that and constantly repeating it, but you do let yourself feel that for however, whatever period of time is appropriate?

Liz Louis:

Yeah, that's a great question. So first, just to kind of separate allowing space for negative emotions and thinking traps which kind of fall into that negative, dysfunctional thinking. The thinking traps are going to be that automatic like nanosecond. scenario and so it's not necessarily going to be truth. It's just kind of the perspective or the meaning that you're making out of life to kind of give yourself a reasoning. When you're angry, when you're even sad or scared, or frustrated, or feel shamed, or whatever it is, it's so much better, like you're saying to address it and drink it away, smoke it away, sex it away, whatever it might be. And really, the best thing to do, a lot of people might not like, like the answer, because it's not fun. But it's sitting with it. It's practicing radical acceptance and mindfulness where you're not judging yourself, you're observing yourself, you're you're you know, I like to tell people you know, find a safe space in your home or somewhere where you can just kind of breathe and not be bothered for a little bit. And then internally, just imagine yourself at a park or something and go sit on the bench in your brain, or be a fly on the wall and just observe the thoughts. I love to journal. I've been journaling since I was six. So this is where I'll journal things. And I again, putting on that Sherlock mindset, you know, explore them curious with curiosity, be curious, don't be judging, don't be like, This is how I have to be. I mean, we all have weird thoughts and sensations and feelings. And nobody can say it's right or wrong. At the end of the day, that's really quite unfair, you might have some dysfunction in the thinking for sure. I mean, that's, that would be fair. But what I like to tell people is really allow yourself to experience it and feel it, do your best to kind of keep it to, you know, at least a 48 hour period. I only say that because you don't want to ruminate and allow it to breathe to brew and and take over you. It's, we got to be tough, and I say things that sometimes annoy people and understand that, but sometimes you just got to toughen up, and you got to just choose to make the decision to let it go. Easier said than done. By all means. Especially when it comes to forgiveness. But it's when you're at a place where you're like, Okay, I can hold this and the intensity, maybe you want to rate the intensity of on a one to 10 scale, I feel this emotion right here. And then you explore it, you're curious with it, maybe it gets down to a lower number than I tell people is like, what was the blessing? What was the benefit? what did that teach you? Because at the end of the day, every situation is like a seed, and it contains both negative and positive elements. Now, you can't think on two things. At the same time. You can't think about the past and the future simultaneously. You can't think of a grasshopper and a peanut simultaneously. So this is where I say like, now let's just focus on the positives. What did it teach you? What did you learn from it? How did it grow you? How are you better from it, and find that positive, optimistic spin and it's there, you might have to bring up like, a nanoscope to see it, but it's there, but whatever you focus on in the brain, it will grow.

Arwen Bardsley:

Yeah, yeah. Thank you for that. And you mentioned just briefly before something about personality traits. So is there any easy way that you think people can come to understand their personality traits, and, you know, use them to their advantage, or, you know, train themselves into different personality traits? Is that even possible?

Liz Louis:

It is. So by the time you're 10 months, your personality starts to show and your personality is half nature, half nurture. And don't take me literal and a half and half because things can obviously change, we know the brain can change. So I have a free assessment called performance development assessment that scores you in 23 personality traits. And you get a PDF that explains each personality trait. Because in certain organizations, they use psychometric testing to see like, is your personality good for this job position, and then it's kind of shows you like where you need to improve or decrease based off of it. I mean, I've helped financial advisors just increase recognition or decrease recognition with their sales which has increased at closing rate of 25%. So some of this is just recalibrations. I mean, you don't know what you don't know type deal. So I think half the battle is growing the awareness and then being willing to see what you're doing which is can be difficult for a lot of people and then tweaking it there. I like linear thinking. So I like to have really clear step by step so I do share some things that you can intentionally do for instance, some people especially the type a individual has low flexibility or anyone who's had a lot of trauma in their past are going to have a little bit more low flexibility. And so if you want to grow your flexibility and you want to be intentional about it a you got to be willing to become uncomfortable because that's going to be a reality to this. And number two start saying yes to everything you can say yes to. If you say should a lot, start catching yourself. So if you say should a lot typically that means you're you're highly conscientious isn't a bad thing, but sometimes that can bring a lot of oppression on you because you're trying to do life and this yes or no right or wrong black or white tendency, and life is really gray at the end of the day. And so if you can kind of like, take that perfectionistic pressure off of you, and be like, Okay, let me hold this a little bit loosely. Do I want to do this? Or do I feel I have to do this and kind of just allowing yourself some choice and play area. I mean, it's amazing how when you just kind of see things at a different angle, you can learn so much more, and your perspective can broaden. So that's ultimately what we're trying to do is just find new and different ways of seeing and doing things. And one of the best ways is just starting with your vocabulary and what you talk about.

Arwen Bardsley:

Yeah, and what you tell yourself, so that, that quizz is on your website, as well as

Liz Louis:

Yes. Oh my gosh, you're gonna laugh at the link. I didn't think about it when I wrote it. So I do apologize. But it's Elizabeth L-O-U-I-S.com backslash performance dev ass. didn't think about it, guys, when I wrote it.

Arwen Bardsley:

That's okay. And something I meant to ask you much earlier was, when you're talking about trauma, I'm assuming that this can be for people as well, you know, those small t traumas, not the big T traumas, like having a brother trying to kill you. Obviously, that is a trauma, but I'm assuming that a lot of smaller things that, you know, you may, we may even have forgotten these things that occurred in our childhood, or, you know, they may be triggered by things that happen in adult life, like, you know, your, your best friend did something bad to you in kindergarten, and you know, then something happens at work. And that gets triggered. But I'm assuming that whenever you're talking, you've talked about trauma that we can, you know, this they may be small t traumas, as I like to call them rather than necessarily the huge ones. Is that correct?

Liz Louis:

Yeah, I like to tell yes. I like to tell people trauma spectrum at the end of the day, it's kind of like hate to say this like rape is a spectrum too like, I think a lot of times when people hear trauma and rape they go to like worst case scenario that we'd like to depict it and if it's not that, then it doesn't fall into the bucket. It's not fair narcissism is a huge spectrum too. And again, it's it's it's your perspective. So if you feel like something was traumatized, it's not fair for anyone to belittle it because they didn't go through it at the end of the day. When you're doing trauma, too. You mentioned a few things there that I just wanted to highlight. Make sure you get rid of the bitterness the fastest you can learn how to forgive and forgive quickly, the freer you're going to be. The fact of the matter is, all humans mess up. We all do stupid things. We're all pretty effed up at times, pardon my language there. Everyone wants forgiveness, very few are willing to give it and be mindful of your hypocritical ways of where you're like, I'm so mad that they did this to me. Meanwhile, you did something similar, if not the same thing to another person. And get over yourself. Let it be. Let it go. Move on, find the positive learn from it. Go again. Life is all a learning experience. I mean, you learn everything.

Arwen Bardsley:

Yeah, yeah. Okay, great. Thank you for that. Um, I just wanted to ask you what your thoughts are on Neurofeedback as a way of changing our our brains.

Liz Louis:

Yeah. Neurofeedback is great. Neurobiofeedback is awesome. All of that stuff. You know, there are so many tools in today's world, that I think it's unfair to say what works and what doesn't work. Because I mean, the placebo effect is really the most effective thing at the end of the day. So if you believe it's going to work for you, then do it. At the end of the day, I mean, we've seen I mean, just to tell you like, antidepressants are half a unit more effective than therapy. Yeah, I mean, half a unit, we're even talking about that, or I think it's more half a unit more effective than placebo effect. I'm so sorry. I mean, like, it's amazing what your brain can create and do. So and just like if you don't like your doctor, the prescription they give you will be less effective than if you go to a doctor that you like, and trust. So if you believe it could help you try it, I did it. I tried everything that was willing that that might work, because it's like, I don't know. And sometimes things didn't work because I didn't like the person providing the service. Psychological safety is going to be huge, especially if you've never had that imprinted in your psyche as a child. So go to the places where you feel safe. I mean, even in therapy, we found that talking to a therapist or a best friend is no different at the end of the day. Now, I would encourage you to stop talking about the things you hate and venting venting is actually really destructive to the brain talking about negativity is destructive to the brain. And so when you start to speak negativity, you can actually create your irreparable damage to you and the listener at the end of the day. So I always tell people, and this is what neuroscientist Andrew Newberg encouraged us to. He's a neuroscientist from Pennsylvania, he says for every one negative find three to five positives. And that's the ratio at the end of the day to help get your brain back into being more of a healthy neurology. And so again, it doesn't matter if you go to a therapist or a coach, just go to someone who can provide safety, a sounding boy or a board. Objective thinking and isn't going to just join your boat for the sake of joining your boat, but it's going to challenge and help you grow, and then be willing to do the work, the only thing you can control is your effort at the end of the day.

Arwen Bardsley:

So if you're in a situation where you are venting about something, then you're just saying, Bring in some positive stuff, as well.

Liz Louis:

I'm saying Don't vent about it. Everyone knows what they don't like, what is talking about what you don't like really going to do besides exacerbate and grow the anger and the frustration. What you can do is be proactive, okay, here's the situation, I give my clients five to 10 minutes of care yet, let's get it off our chest. Some people do just need to like be heard and validated. That's fair, there's a difference of like, going on the merry go round of ruminating and kicking the same point over and over and over again, telling me what you don't like, and the person is getting more and more aggressive and angry because of it. versus saying, okay, great. This is what you don't like, awesome. I hear you. I'm sorry, that happened? What do you want to do about it? You want to keep talking about how much you hated it. Because that's not going to do a darn thing at the end of the day, besides make you more frustrated, more angry, more negative? And so then we we focus on what can we do about it? Okay, Sally, hurt your feelings. Sorry, Sally hurt your feelings? Where is it in your control that you maybe agree with her when you didn't have to? Where did you give her more power where you didn't have to? Where can we get you a little bit more tough minded, you have to be tough minded in life, unfortunately, I'm sorry. It's not necessarily the funnest thing to hear. But you have to become a little bit more tough minded and take accountability to where you're responsible for certain stuff, right? wrong or indifferent. No one's mad at you, and then make a concrete plan to change to do the work to overcome it. Because it's very easy for a human to tell you what they don't like, it's very hard for humans to tell you what they do like sometimes.

Arwen Bardsley:

Yeah, okay. All right. Thank you for that. So we're coming to the end, obviously, love for you to tell us about your podcast, and also any other service offerings, any specials that you've got at the moment that you want people to know about.

Liz Louis:

So I can because we don't have that much time in life at the end of the day. So I want to help give people strategies to move forward. And then right now I have an online self paced course called mindset mastery. It goes through eight modules with a bonus module, and it talks about every single thing in a very actionable step by step tangible plan to help you create a strong mental Foundation. Because what I found is a lot of my clients were trying to build a third Storey, and I'm like, you don't even have a first storey, what are you what's gonna hold up the third storey like, we've got to get this strong foundation, sturdy before you can go up and up and up? And so that's exactly what mindset mastery does is it teaches you exactly how to build that strong mindset, how to make decisions, how to have healthy self talk, how to shift your thinking how to speak effectively, because that's huge in relationships, and really, how to just transform your life to something more positive and hopeful. So you can continue to build on it. Because I don't think we ever fully like Master master our mindsets, because we're always evolving and growing. And so it's like, how do we get to that next level, and just get really further from the dock at the end of the day? Because I think that's what most people want is like, get me out of this place. I want to transform. And so it's a linear application to transformation.

Arwen Bardsley:

Okay, great. So and just say your website again for everyone?

Liz Louis:

Oh, yes. Elizabeth L-O-U-I-S.com.

Arwen Bardsley:

Okay. And so the, the quizzes are on there, as well as the course that you just mentioned, and lots of other information as well.

Liz Louis:

Yes, exactly.

Arwen Bardsley:

And your podcast is on all the podcast platforms?

Liz Louis:

Yes, it is. It is. It is for sure.

Arwen Bardsley:

All right, wonderful. Well, I really appreciate your time today Liz, and was a really fun conversation. Lots of information for people to wrap their minds around. And thank you so much for coming on.

Liz Louis:

Thank you so much. Arwen for having me. You had some awesome questions. You were terrific. Host This was so much fun.

Arwen Bardsley:

All right. Take care Liz.