The Art of Letting Go: Navigating Life's Lessons with Lisa Carpenter

Learn about the art of letting go and navigating life's lessons with Lisa Carpenter. Welcome back.

I'm Beverly, former fitness manager turned online personal training business owner. And this podcast is where smart fitness professionals, including trainers and clinicians, discover how to increase client performance in movement, package and position their products and services and get out of their way so that they can increase their revenue. Live a life. Welcome to the PT Profit podcast Self Compassion.

This episode is bound to be helpful in your journey into this new year as you start out 2025 for both your personal development and for your business goals. If you enjoy this episode, be sure to leave it a five star rating whether you are listening to it on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or your podcast player of choice. We really appreciate it when you support the show and it makes a massive difference. Without further ado, let's roll that interview.

Lisa, what a pleasure and a privilege to have you on the show today. How are you doing?

I am so well. Happy New year. Happy New Year. 25. I know it doesn't really mean anything, but there is something so beautiful about the flip of the calendar and fresh new energy that. Yeah, it just, I think it does, I think it does matter.

You know, I always say this every year and it's worth saying again. I, I love the fresh feeling of turning the page, that, that energetic experience that people feel around New year, new energy. And I always say to myself, how can I bring this type of feeling into every day? Because literally every day, every moment can be a fresh turn of the page.

A fresh turn of the page, absolutely. But there is something really. Yeah, like this just renewed energy. And I don't know about you, but you know, 2024, actually, 2020 through 2024 was just kind of compounded stuff after stuff after stuff and it just feels like the fog is starting to clear. So for me personally, 2025 just has this real sense of fresh energy. And you know that the easiest way to bring that like new energy in on a day to day basis. Although you probably don't want to do this day to day. Change the sheets on your bed. When you change the sheets on your bed, it's the same type of feeling of like fresh, new, clean sheets. Like it's a great practice to get into when you change your sheets to really think, like, I'm bringing in new energy into my, into my space, into my home, into my life. This is what it gets to feel like.

Ooh, what a, what a good idea. I haven't, you know, it, it does feel like work, but it feels so good when you get into a new bed with new sheets, it feels so good, right?

It's the best. It's the same New Year's feeling, so we just need to capture that.

So good. And you're right. I'm with you, too. Right before we hit record, we were just kind of recapitulating the experiences of 2023 and 20, really 2020 through 2024. And I'm excited, too. I feel renewed for and excited for 2025, despite the amount of lessons I wish I didn't have to face in 2023 and more.

So, you know, it's. It's hard when we're in the middle of those lessons. And, you know, 2023 really took me to my knees in my life. It. You know, I had one of those moments and. And I know most of us have them at some point in time where you feel like the, you know, your knees have been taken out from underneath you and everything changes and, you know, you can't go back. Nothing is ever going to be the same, and you have to move forward. And when you're in those deep lessons, it is so hard. It is so painful. And there were days where I thought, God, am I going to find my way to the other side of this? And this is with, you know, being a coach for over two decades. Like, I know my stuff, and it doesn't matter how good of a coach you are, we still need support, and we still can't avoid when life hits us hard, we still can't avoid grief, pain, disappointment, frustration. Like there is no magic tool that helps us skip being human. So. So 2023, and then going into 2024. 2024 was really when I stepped into, okay, this is what I need this year for me, for me to feel better, for me to find my way out to the other side, because I knew that I didn't want to continue to live feeling the way that I was feeling, but I knew that the only way out was through. So, you know, 2024 was a real year of traveling the globe, pulling my dreams in closer. No longer living from when this happens, then I'll go do that and really doubling down on my own personal support, allowing myself to be supported by my friends, my coaches, my therapists, you know, the healers, the. All the. All the resources that I had to support me getting to the other side. And. And also, even with all those people in your corner, at the end of the day, you're the one that has to make the Choices that are going to change your life. So it's been a journey. So for you just entering into a real period of allowing things to fall away or fighting with the parts of yourself that have been there for so long that are looking to be acknowledged maybe for the first time, it isn't easy and it's so worth it on the other side. But you are going to have to expand your capacity for discomfort. And I think that this is what so many people try and avoid is they don't want to feel the discomfort that comes from transformation. And you know, ironically, as you know in the gym, the only way to transform your body and a lot of trainers have to work with their clients around this, is expanding their capacity for the discomfort of doing that extra rep, of putting that extra weight on. Right. Moving women past the five pound pink dumbbells. Oh lordy. Right. And recognizing that, that we have to build that, that resiliency in the gym, that we have to build that fortitude. And when it comes to the deep inner work that we do, the same is true. It's, it's. Can you hold more than you think you can hold? Can you be with the parts of yourself that you know, you just want to turn and run away from, that you want to netflix your way out of or you know, pour yourself another glass of wine or get to work and just do more work in your business? Right. All the things that we do to avoid ourselves.

Oh my gosh, it's so true. Okay, so there's a couple of things that you said that I'm just kind of curious your take on. Especially if you are listening to this episode and you are not new to the self development and personal development space. I feel like there's this, there's huge parts of the community in my opinion. So I'm just going to give you, you know, forewarning. This is my opinion. But I feel like as I'm exploring the, this idea of bringing in closer the parts of myself that need to be acknowledged, the parts of myself that need, that need to, to, you know, come integrated back into me. I feel like part of it comes from this idea of you need to shift your identity, you need to change who you are. And I feel like there is a duality here when in sense of. It's. It's actually, at least for me, it's more about remembering who you already are, bringing the parts of you that are already awake. And I feel like in the personal development world or coaching world, there's this, this idea that you have to Change who you are instead of, you know, honoring more of who you are. So I'm just curious your take on and how you help your clients through this.

So it really isn't about changing who you are. Right? We get to love who we are. But that's part of the problem is most people don't accept love who they are where they are right now. And loving and accepting where you are right now doesn't mean that you're not going to change. Are you the same person that you were when you were 20? I know I'm not. Right. So it, it's, it's about evolving who we are. So like you said, remembering. So the way that I look at it, I use the metaphor of Joey Tribbiani from Friends when he was wearing all of Chandler's clothing, right. Do you remember that? See?

Yes, yes.

Oh Friends. It's no classic. I'm so dating myself now. Back in the day when we had tv, it was just one, wasn't so serious. So he's wearing all of the clothes. And that's really how we, we come into this world. And we are perfect as we are, we're more than worthy, we're more than deserving of everything. But we start to look to our left and our right and think, oh well, I'm not as good as them. Or they're saying I should be this way. Or oh, in order to feel like I belong, I need to do this. Or in order to feel loved or safe, I need to do this. And we start putting on these clothes, we start putting on these layers that aren't really who we are. But there are parts of us that show up to help us survive because we are hardwired to survive. And if our sense of love, safety or belonging is ever threatened, this is where we create these parts of us that basically adapt to help us. Right? But they don't understand as we get older that we don't actually need those parts anymore. We can ask them to soften back, right? So whether it's, you know, getting into pleasing or control or we can get into perfectionism, procrastination, all these things, all these different types of behaviors, including, you know, the numbing out behaviors like doom scrolling drinking, drugs, alcohol, sex, like you name it, there's a gazillion things that we use to avoid ourselves. But all of these are just masking who we really are deep underneath the surface. And when you start to put those parts of you down, it can be terrifying. Like who are you if you're not the person that is always being nice to everybody else or making sure that everybody else is getting what they want. Right. So we see this a lot in service based industries. The over delivering. Right. That over deliver extra more and more and more. Right. To make sure your clients get great results. But at the end of the day that's more about you wanting them to like you than it is about them getting results because they are actually responsible for their results. So as we shed these layers, we start to discover who we are without these coping mechanisms. And that is very, very uncomfortable for most people. Right. When you're not. Yeah, go for it.

Yeah, I was like a hundred percent. I feel like, you know, some of these things that you're describing I really relate to and I think a lot of other high achievers and other high performance service based coaches really resonate with this. I just noticed this in my own work and I think it, you, you hit the nail on the head when you say that this you, you do it and say it in the event or you know, for your client but really it's about you and you're just not present to the fact that it's about you. At least this is what I'm realizing as I'm going into 2025 is that it's. It, you know, I think it, it for me, at least I'll just speak for me. But I, I know that this will hit home for a lot of people that I work with, which is that we also have to step into this energy of receiving and that's part of it. And it can be really hard for a high achiever because we're always moving the goal. It doesn't matter. It's like once I hit this, and you even talked about it earlier is that if then continuum, as soon as I do this, then I'll do this and, and we are hiding or at least I am hiding from this. Like well, it's, it's an. It's in service but really it's just in blindness to my ability to receive.

Right. And it's not just receiving from other people, it's also being willing to receive from yourself. Because the high achiever's trap is that we're constantly chasing that bar. Like you said. Right. But then we raise the bar because the belief is if we hit the bar right then we're going to feel a certain way. Like the goal is never about the goal for every single one of us. Underneath it it's. The goal is how we think we're going to feel when we hit the Goal. But what happens with high achievers is they get to the goal, they're like, so they raise the bar again. And they're constantly working from this place of not enough, but believing, well, if I just achieve more, more success, more clients, more money, better body, whatever it is, then I will finally feel better. But this is all running at an unconscious level. Most people don't even realize that this is happening. And it's when you start to put this down and you have to receive from yourself that you get to feel proud, when you accomplish something, that you get to rest, that you get to create ease. And when you face the parts of yourself that realize like, oh, wow, like, my worthiness is not dependent on me achieving anything in my life. And you get to be worthy as you are today. And then you get to build and grow and still achieve and be ambitious and driven. I still very much am. But it's not coming from this unhealthy part of me that is trying to get me to that place of feeling better, working from a healed and whole place now. And that's a completely different energy.

Yeah.

You know, I'd love for you to.

Share because I feel like this happens, you know, a lot to a lot of coaches, myself included. Is what was the experience like for you to acknowledge that you're having a human experience and a coach at the same time? Like, I think for a lot of high achievers, there's these feelings of like, I have to be at X in order to help people and who am I to help someone when I'm also having a. A human experience. So what was that like for you as a coach? Especially with two decades experience underneath, Years.

And years of work of being taken to my knees and humbled by my own coaches and realizing that being hard on myself and you being hard on yourself and any of your listeners, being hard on yourself is actually abusive. And most of us have learned to be abusive towards ourselves from whether it was parents, coaches, whatever, that that was the way to the next great achievement. If you're hard on yourself, you're going to drive harder, you're going to push harder. But the truth of the matter is, when you learn deep levels of self, compassion and acceptance, you don't have to be hard on yourself. So think about your kids, Beverly. Right. When you poop them and drive them, do they rise up to the challenge? Sometimes. But what are they really looking for? You as a parent. Right. They're looking for your love, they're looking for your acceptance, they're looking for your compassion. And we can be compassionate and still say, hey, you need to go do the thing. And, hey, this is probably gonna be hard. And you know what? Like, I love you and I know that you are capable of more, but we're going to do it from a place of love and compassion versus you're not good enough. Completely different energy to operate from.

I. It can be hard to. It can be hard to look at that. Let me tell you. Um, I'm also. I'm also curious, you know how you. You mentioned. And you talked about feeling through it, right? It's like you. The only way out is through. How do you, as a coach, for yourself and for your clients as well, differentiate between, like, this sense of processing and wallowing?

That's a great question. So most of us, most of the women that I work with and men that I work with, they are actually deep feelers that have learned to cut themselves off from their emotions because they were probably taught and told when they were young that their feelings didn't matter. Suck it up, buttercup. Just get on with it. Stop crying. Just move forward. And we can't think our way through things like grief, frustration. So part of. Part of the process that I work with my clients on is connecting them back to their feelings. Because once you can actually feel your emotions, they won't trap you, which, ironically, most people are trapped in their emotions. Because when you're into behaviors like control, pleasing, procrastination, like you're trapped in your emotions. Whereas if you just allowed yourself to feel what was there, acknowledge it. That doesn't mean that you drown in it and you never move through it. But it starts with saying, this is what I'm feeling. Acknowledging it. Just like if a child was in front of you, would you just tell them, like, sorry, you don't get to be sad right now. Like, you'd acknowledge what they were feeling. Oh, honey, you're sad. I understand that now. What can we do to support you feeling better? It's the same process with ourselves. It's creating the awareness of what we're actually feeling. So not avoiding it anymore, but actually getting in touch with what am I feeling in this moment? What am I wanting to avoid here? What behaviors am I getting into? And if I didn't get into this behavior, what emotion would I have to sit with? It just. It starts with that, and it sounds so kindergarten ish, but when I was brought back to learning how to feel my feelings, and I tell this story all the time, I was sitting in a room with very high achieving Men and women, like, I'm talking appellate court judges, police officers, doctors, nurses. We were all at what I call rehab camp. So my husband had gone into rehab, and this program was for the people who love the people who were in rehab. Right. We all thought we were there to learn how to fix our addicts, how we could support them in being well. And then we got our asses handed to us because we realized that all of us had just the biggest problem as they did. We were just avoiding our feelings, using what are called process addictions versus addicts typically get into substance addictions. Drugs, alcohol, sex, that kind of stuff. Process addictions are more behavior addictions. Control, pleasing, being passive aggressive, all those type of fun things. Right? Overworking is massive. 1. I'm sitting in this room with all these men and women in our chairs with our therapist, and every day we'd have to check in. We'd look around the top of the room, and there were literally feeling pictures, like in kindergarten, right? Sad, happy. And she would ask us what each of us were feeling in that moment. And we had to go beyond fine, which was a standard emotion for high achiever. I'm fine. The inflection would change. I'm fine. I'm fine.

Right?

Change the inflection. But we actually had to start to tune into our emotions. And we have a massive array of emotions that we're able to experience as humans. And that was really the start of getting out of my head and into my body around, what am I feeling in this moment? And allowing myself to pause. Oh, this is frustration and understanding. Oh, of course I feel frustrated. This, this, and this didn't happen. And then the next step is to just say, what can I do in this moment to support myself feeling better? So I used to drown in anxiety, and I didn't even know I was drowning in anxiety until I started doing this practice. And it was like two, three times a day. I would just check in and say, lisa, how are you feeling? And I would realize, oh, I'm feeling really anxious. You know that anxious feeling that, like. Right.

Yes, yes.

And then I would have to learn how to talk myself off the ledge, because the anxious feeling was the part of me that was like, you have things to do. Like, you should be busy. And I was learning how to slow down, right? I was unraveling this overachiever's addiction that I had. And I would have to say to myself, like, there's nothing to do in this moment, Lisa. Like, you have your to do list. Just start ticking things off. But there's no need to feel anxiety. And I had to ask that part of me to just simmer down. But that anxiety was running the show in my life. It was driving everything. So until I learned how to feel it, I couldn't release it. So you see what I'm saying here, right? You're asking, how do we not wallow in it? And what I'm saying is most people are constantly wallowing and living their life from their emotions without even realizing it because they've justified it. Because we get high five for the behaviors of achievement, being busy doing all the things, spinning all the plates, but that's actually keeping us from living the life we want to live, having the success that we want to have, feeling the way we want to feel, all of those things are available to us. But like I said, it's a bumpy ride, because then when you recognize, oh, these are the behaviors that I'm using to not feel those feelings. So now I'm going to allow myself to feel the anxiety or feel the frustration or feel the grief. That's where your capacity to hold that discomfort needs to expand. Because you would never say to yourself, I'm so happy today. I don't want. I don't want to stay in this. I don't want to marinate in this. I need to figure out how to not be so happy. We would never say that, right? We want to feel more happy. We want to feel more expansive. But what we coin the negative emotions, we want to move away from them so quickly, we just want to avoid them like a child having a tantrum, like, how can I get away from this? Instead of understanding that those are the parts of us that are so desperately wanting us to acknowledge that they're there. And once you can start to acknowledge them and work through that, they will no longer hold you hostage. Right. So I no longer struggle with anxiety. I do still have things I struggle with. We all do. Welcome to being human. But once you can learn how to really be a master of your emotions, meaning you're using them to direct you. You're using them as guideposts versus just trying to, like, stuff them down and shove them away, that's when you'll really start to step into mastery of all areas of your life. But it's not easy.

Well, I'm glad that you're bringing this up, because this is another misconception, at least for me, is in what I've experienced is, you know, we hear these things in these phrases like, you know, wherever, how you do one Thing is how you do everything. And I have experienced the opposite in the sense of, you know, sometimes I will have a level of mastery in one area of my life, but notice that there are other places that I haven't handled or that where. Where my ego has blinded me from. From. Oh, no, there's work here. You handled it maybe in your. In your food and health or business, but we've got some areas of opportunity in your relationships. And so I feel like that is another misconception that often blinds high achievers or people who have. Have, you know, done some of this work.

Yeah, I. I don't. You know, you can always find the threads. So the way that I look at it is there's something. So when I'm being really disciplined in the gym, for instance. Right. Like, I've been a fitness competitor for a lot of years, although I think I'm retired now. I think I'm retired. I think I'm retired. What I find is when I'm really structured in the gym and that becomes such a foundation for my life that carries over into my business. But when I'm being unstructured in the gym, like 20, 24, because I was traveling so much, I was like, I'm just gonna wing this year. That also carried over into my business. There are areas where I feel like I have mastery, and then there's areas where I'm like, wow, I don't know what I'm doing here. Parenting. Parenting. Parenting is always like an Achilles heel for me. Interesting, right? For most of us, I think, like, do any of us really know what we're doing with parenting?

I mean, I. It's so funny you say that, because I'm going to tell you, and this is what I was coming up for me when I was listening to is honestly, parenting is what brought me to this work. This is how I. I became more present to who I am because of my parent. My children. My children have really exposed. So so much of my work that I have done on myself has been.

Because of my children. Yes, because you didn't have mastery as a mom. That's what I mean. Right. Like, so your children are a gateway into this work. Your business is a gateway into this work. But those. So when you say, you know, how we do one thing is how we do all things, do you not look at every area of your life as a gateway into the work about knowing yourself better?

I do. I absolutely do. But I guess, you know, sometimes the. What made me bring it up is because when I first started on this journey, really, it would be like, oh, well, I don't need to worry about my health. My health is sorted. And so I would almost get triggered when I would hear that, because I'd be like, but I've figured that part out, so why can't I translate that into my business? For example?

Well, interesting. But sometimes the belief that we figured it out is actually the blind spot, right?

Like that 1,000%.

That's it. Like, I'm. I'm. I've got this sorted, and then you realize, like, oh, wow, I don't have that sorted. There's more there. So I don't actually believe we ever really reach levels of mastery. I think we leave the planet before we ever get there. And I'm certainly not at, like, a shaman level of. Of mastery. So I have let go of the belief that I'm ever going to master anything. My job is to just, like, keep turning over the stones and seeing what I can discover and trusting that the universe will deliver the lessons. That pace that I need them, sometimes they come faster. Sometimes we get to sit on the mountaintop and enjoy the view. I'm hoping that 2025 is soft lessons. Pillow fights only, please. No two by fours. And that I just get to enjoy. I just get to enjoy the work that I've done over the past four years because I know that inevitably there is going to be more lessons that come. And I think that this time, you know, as my son goes, He's 13 now, my youngest, I think that it's going to go back into the parenting realm. So I've been deep into the relationship realm and the parenting realm, and I think that that's. I think that that's the next direction we're going to be going. Because, as you know, you know, parenting requires high levels of compassion for our kids. High levels of compassion. And that also means that we have to have high levels of compassion for ourselves as well. And sometimes it's challenging to show up and be compassionate with our kids when you just think, like, maybe shaking you would work better. But no, that's not the answer. Don't do that.

Oh, my gosh. Parenting. Parenting has completely. I mean, it rocked my world, and I wouldn't change it for a million worlds. But. No, but there have been days my husband and I have looked at each other and we thought, when did we.

Think this was a good idea again? Like, Well, I think you've probably heard me say that. I don't actually think we are here to guide our children. I think our children Are given to us to be portals into our own work. And actually now, as I'm exploring family history and stuff, because that's so tied to the stories that we've created about ourselves, I'm even looking at, you know, my parents through a very, very different lens than I have before. And I thought I'd done a lot of work around my relationship with my parents. And even now I'm like, wow, like, there's so much more here. And it's not about blaming my parents for anything. It's looking at them with wild curiosity and seeing them just as sovereign human beings, not as my parents, but just as humans. How would I view them differently? And what can I learn about myself and man? Like, just some of the stories as I've asked better questions of my parents, the things that I've learned about myself and my own nervous system and why I may have come into this world dysregulated right out of the gate, you know, my mom told me this story. This is so off topic. I'm gonna tell it anyways. My mom told me this story. She was pretty much ready to give birth. My dad took her hunting because that's what we do back in the day. Handed her a shotgun, left her with our, you know, wiener dog, our little dash hound. Sat her down in a meadow, pregnant with me. And she's sitting there by herself reading the book with the gun beside her, and a bear walks into the field. Simple as I'm looking, you know, as I'm unraveling my own nervous system responses because I'm quite often in a. What we call a functional freeze, right? Your body is like, tense and, you know, your nervous system is on it. And I'm thinking, like, could you imagine the levels of cortisol and that was.

Pumping through your mother and you stools.

At that moment, right? And then I'd pop out like a week later. These things impact us. They impact how we show up in the world, how we then go on to parent, run our lives, get into relationships, grow businesses. It's fascinating work. It's fascinating work. But that's why I have to look at my parents with curiosity. I'm like, what kind of things happen to them that have impacted me versus, you know, I know a lot of people can get into blame, you know, blaming their parents. I never blame my parents for every anything. I just think it's. It's. Humans are so complex and complicated. We're just all trying to do our best for each other. We're trying to do our best for our kids and knowing that, you know, we're going to make some mistakes along the way and they're going to have their journeys and paths too. And it's when you start to do this work on yourself and I think you'll really get this. It's like you become even more personally responsible for how you're showing up for your kids and really wanting them to have better, but also knowing you cannot do the work for them.

Yes.

Right. And I've got a 13 year old who is like anti anything even remotely woo.

Spiritual like, oh, that's so funny.

Hard. Stop. He does not want to talk about feelings. It's such a big part of my work. He does not want to talk about feelings. From the time he was little, if he would cry, he would ask me to make it stop. Mommy, make it stop. My eyes are aching like so I'm just like, what kind of lessons did this little man bring to my world? Because here I am so passionate about emotional fluency and, you know, letting our emotions guide us and, and yeah, he just wants no part of it yet. I'm watching him get into behaviors to completely avoid his emotions. And I'm his mom, I'm not his coach. So figuring out how I'm going to guide his journey because he's meant to have a path on this planet while also not, you know, being hard on myself or going into a guilt trip of like, oh my God, if I'd only known this or if I'd done this differently then being fully accepting that this is his journey, this is his path, what's my role in it? How can I be responsible for my stuff? How can I be showing up and taking care of me while also trying to make decisions to support him finding his path and also knowing I have no control over anything that's going to happen.

I mean, me too. I mean I've, I experienced this both with my children and also with my clients. And it's interesting, you know, I have experience. I've, in many ways I have watched my 9 and 7 year old, like I've, I've given them the space to experience life and I remind myself that the things that they say are reflections and mirrors. Like they are mirrors for me. And I'm their guide. I'm not here to control them. I'm here to keep them safe through the human experience that they are intended to have. And it can be challenging as a, as a parent. And I'm also using those experiences and reminding myself I need to pull this through in my Coaching work, which is why I think it's so important that coaches, especially high achieving coaches, like, I, I think it's, it's essential. I almost think it is. It is. You are doing yourself and your clients a disservice if you yourself are not in coaching as well. Because we, I just think it's essential.

Yeah, it's, it's an integrity piece for me. There are a tremendous amount of coaches out in the world. There just is like the, the, you know, the market is saturated with coaches and there are so many coaches that haven't actually invested in their own coaching. And I'm not talking like just group coaching. I'm talking like one to one, head to head, toe to toe with a coach or with a therapist, whatever you choose, but being committed to your work. So I've been coaching now for over 20 years. I have had a coach. So I started out as a personal trainer, right? That was kind of my coaching, like way back in the day. I have had my own personal coach for over 13 years now. I have never not had a coach in some capacity, um, because it is just so imperative for me. And it's not about trying to fix anything that's broken like that. You know, that ship sailed long ago. It's not about, there's nothing broken here. It's. It's emotional hygiene for me, for one. And I can't see my own blind spots. And let me tell you, you know, when everything fell apart in 2023, to know that I was surrounded with people that I'd already built relationships with that I could trust to go even deeper with this work, because it was probably one of the most painful things I've ever gone through in my life. I could not have done it on my own. And I had to be very, very kind to myself through the journey. Because, you know, when you've been coaching for as long as I have and worked with as many people as I have, I have all the tools in the toolbox. It didn't matter. I had to just say, like, screw the tools, Lisa. Put the tools down. You be human and allow yourself to surrender and be supported by others. It didn't mean I didn't have responsibility in where I was holding my attention, in managing my emotions, in feeling what was going on and all the things. Right. There were a lot of things that I could be personally responsible for, but there was also such a huge element of surrender and allow yourself to be supported by others and just be in it. Because, you know, we can, as coaches, we can turn the tools of personal development into weapons against ourselves. I should know. I should know better. I should know better. And I knew that that was just that part of me that's like, let's push harder, right? Being a high achiever, I'm like, I'm going to move through this faster. I'm going to do this is. This is how it's going to be. And it didn't matter which way I turned. The universe was like, that's not happening, woman. Like, taking you to your knees until you surrender to this path. And you know what? Because I surrendered, I think that that's where I am today. Because I know people who've gone through something very similar to me, and 10 years later, they're still medicated for it because they didn't actually surrender and embrace the process. And nobody, nobody wants to go through hard stuff. Nobody wants to feel confronted and icky. I mean, there were parts of myself that I did. I was like, well, I do not want to meet you. I do not. Like, you don't want to know any part of this. But, you know, when you're surrounded by the right coaches who don't judge you, who have been through their own stuff and can hold that space for you, because it takes so much vulnerability to walk into that with someone and have someone witness you. And with high achievers, most of us are very, very uncomfortable with vulnerability. It doesn't feel safe for us. You know this, right? It doesn't feel.

Deeply. I.

Your nervous system starts to light up when you think about talking about stuff. Most of us have never been witnessed or held in that type of space before. So it's so important to find people and put those people in your corner that can hold space for that, that aren't going to project their stuff onto you, that are going to be able to witness you in your full 3D humanness and support you walking through the other side. That's just. I mean, so I. I've believed in coaching for years and years now. So, you know, as far as I'm concerned, if somebody is coaching other people and they are not getting coaching themselves, they're out of integrity with their work. Like, full stop for me on that, which might seem very judgy. I don't care. Even us having this conversation, right? Because you started this call saying that there's a bunch of stuff that you're starting to face and it's like, look at the. Look at the response from your physical body around that.

You mean when it comes to vulnerability, like, specifically for me, I'LL share that there is. Like, I was viewed as weak or seen and. And treated through the lens of, like, oh, we can't take her seriously when she's having an emotional experience or when she's being vulnerable. And I had internalized that for myself as, like, it's not okay or safe for me to be vulnerable or to share that I need help here. Like, I would think of, like, help as a weakness, you know, and that's hard.

And I'm really sorry that you had that experience because that happens to so many high achievers. Because the people that are. That are telling you that it's because they can't handle the discomfort of being in somebody else's vulnerability, Right? So our parents, God bless them, parents, teachers, whatever, they didn't have any language for emotions. They just knew that if you were feeling something, I was uncomfortable. So I need to do whatever I need to do to shut you down so you stop feeling that way so that I can feel better. And parents often do this with their kids, right? Like, their kids are upset about something, and the immediate response is like, how can I fix you to make you feel better so that I can feel better? This is why I have this saying. Like, don't pass the Kleenex. Like, let people be in their discomfort. You can be there for somebody. So opening back up to being vulnerable can feel terrifying because those are the moments where you were shut down, where you were told that your feelings weren't valid. And this is how so many high achievers get trapped in your emotions and unplug from that wisdom of their body. Because other people who couldn't be with their emotions told you, you. Your emotions were wrong. You couldn't trust them, and you needed to shift them. But it was nothing more than them trying to get away from their own discomfort. So I really love that you're gonna soften and open back up to this, because healing is an incredibly vulnerable process. Oh. And yes, you know, when you can tap into that, that's like, you know, you've taken off all the layers of clothing. That's truly when you can be your full, authentic self and you can just show up and be honest and. And. And raw. I still believe, though, that not everybody is deserving of our vulnerability. So I talk about it a dartboard, right? Like, I've got my dartboard friends. Like, so the people that are at the middle of the bullseye, they get to see me in my, like, darkest, deepest. They. They've earned that trust. And because I can be a little bit More externally referenced there. The people that I'll take feedback from and they're also okay if I'm like, some of that resonates, some of that doesn't. Right. And then I've got people that are further out on the dartboard that actually don't know how to hold space for me when I'm feeling things or in something deeply. They're not actually safe space for me to be open and vulnerable. Right. Like I almost get that recoil effect. So I've just learned like those people are not the people that I'm going to share with. I'm also not going to be the person that shares in front of a room of 500 people. That's never going to be me. That's never going to feel safe in my body. And that doesn't mean that I'm hiding. It means I'm making a choice to be vulnerable in spaces where I know I'm going to get the support that I need to be able to move through it. That's not going to drop me into a place of shame because that's what happened to me right in that moment. I need to be strong. You were actually dropped into a place of feeling shameful about what you were feeling. And that's not okay. And there's a lot of people that don't know how to not like pull people into that shame trap.

And it's really, and it's really a reflection of their shame. They do it because they feel this way and, and I can have both compassion, like it's, it's very interesting because I, I can experience it and know what's happening at the same time that it takes so much effort to, to, you know, manage that sometimes. And sometimes if you catch me on a weak moment, I won't be able to.

Right. And that's true for all of us. I mean, there's so many things that go into being able to manage our emotions. You've probably heard me talk about halt before. Hungry, angry, lonely, tired. Right. Like the foundations of self care that need to be there so that we can better regulate ourselves. And even for you, like paying attention to what does shame feel like in your body and can you move yourself out of that feeling of shame versus like disappearing into it. Right. I really know when I'm in that place, I can feel it so deeply in my body. And my job when I'm in that place of shame is to have the adult version of me show up, wrap my arms around that shameful little child. Cause it's you Know she's about five. When I go into my shame, I'm probably about five and just say, like, I've got you. Like, there's nothing wrong with you. And I would practice. I would practice allowing shame to come in so that I could practice managing it and moving myself through it and out of it. Yeah, so that's what I mean about. You know, you asked earlier about how do we not stay in our emotions? It will. You get intimate with them, and then you learn how to manage them like children who need your care and attention, and that's how you'll never get trapped in them. That's really what it takes to free yourself. So.

Good. No, just out of curiosity, for. For you, how do you know when you've moved through it and processed it?

That's such a great question. So I'm going to use 2024 as an example. So 2024, as I traveled, every time I went somewhere, the. The process was about letting go. And then I'd come home and I'd be in my life, and I'd be like, oh, I'm not complete yet. I knew I was. I'm not complete yet. Right. Like, I'd be triggered. Things would come up, so then I would travel again. So I know not everybody can hop on a plane every time they're triggered, but this was my year. My year was plan to travel so that I could be out of my environment. I think that's a big part of healing often is. Is getting out of our environment. But every single time, I would make a commitment that I was gonna let something go or I would create more awareness around something. So, for instance, when I was in Spain.

I love Spain.

It was amazing. It was wet. I walked the Camino in Spain. Didn't know what the hell I was getting myself into, but I decided I was gonna go walk the Camino. It poured with rain. Like, I never seen it in my life. And I live in Vancouver. That's saying a lot. It poured with rain, like. And I was just like, oh, my God. Did I travel halfway around the world to make peace with the weather? Because in Vancouver, I. I don't go outside in the winter. All it does is rain, like Seattle, which is awful. So, you know, the whole time I'm spending, like, walking with my head down, and I'm like, what a metaphor this is. While also looking at the people I was walking with, which was a metaphor for, like, choose the right partners. If you're going to be walking in the rain for five hours, six hours, a Day, like, choose. Choose your partners wisely. Right? Have your wingman there. But what I realized as I was walking the Camino was where my attention was, where my thoughts kept going. And, you know, I was hurt really badly by somebody in my life. That was a truth. But what I realized was that now I was the one hurting myself because I was choosing to continue to let my thoughts spiral into places that they didn't need to go. I had created scenarios, memories, pictures of things that I wasn't. I wasn't there, but I created. It was like I created Disneyland in my head for my pain.

And I mean, I laugh, but it's not funny. But I know what you're saying.

Yeah, it's not funny, but, like, I'm on another ride. Yeah, right. It was. I'd literally created all of this in my head. So, yes, this thing happened. But how was I going to release the pain? Because what start. What I started to realize was that I was getting attached to that pain because the belief was, well, if I hold onto this pain, then I won't get hurt again. And a lot of people attach to their pain because of that reason. Right? Because we literally believe that if we create scenarios, if we run all the plans, if we catastropize everything, then we won't get hurt, which is not true. You're going to hurt regardless of whatever happens in your life. You can't pre plan to be like, oh, I've already run this in my head. It doesn't hurt. It's just not the way it happens ever. So on the Camino, I picked out this rock that represented my pain. I was like, okay, Lisa, when we get to marker 0, you are going to put this rock down. You're going to raise your hands like Rocky, and we are going to be done with the pain. I got to marker 0, and I was like, nope, holding on. I'm like, I'm not ready. And I knew if I put that rock down, right? So it was a physical representation. I knew if I put that rock down that I would just be lying to myself. I would be doing the self help thing versus actually being honest. So, Beverly, I put that rock in my fanny pack, and I carried that rock with me for an additional three weeks. I carried it all through Africa. I carried it to Mallorca, I carried it back to Spain, and I would almost have a panic attack if I couldn't find the rock. And it wasn't a fancy rock. It's not like it was a crystal. Like, it was just a piece of Granite that I picked up along Camino. And I remember sitting on the beach in Spain and thinking, okay, Lisa, like, this is. This is a real moment. Are you going to take this pain home with you at this degree? Are you going to carry this rock? Are you going to put it on a plane? Are you going to fly back home to Vancouver with you and continue to cuddle with it every night? What needs to happen here? I sat on that beach for probably about six hours until I was ready to throw that rock in the ocean. So I'm not going to pretend like, I came home with no pain. But that commitment to throw that rock away was the commitment to myself that I was no longer going to go into the Disneyland of pain in my head. The commitment to myself was. When those thoughts came up, I was going to be responsible and say, lisa, we're not doing this anymore. Yes, it happened, and we're not doing this anymore. So it's not that I came home and never got triggered or never felt that pain again, but the intensity went from like a 15 down to like a 5. And then the work continued from there. Right? Because it still wasn't fully through. And I don't. I don't kid myself, right? I'm not pretending like, yes, I'm on the other side, but I can say now that I am more on the other side than I ever have been. And then I also watched for signs from the universe about, you know, like, and I was intentional when I went to Peru, I'm like, this is for me. I'm going to Peru. I'm going to sit with those shamans. I'm going to have a bath under the moon. I found a scorpion in my room, which represented a whole bunch of things for me. It was just creepy. But I came home from there, and I was like, I am now ready to make a decision about which direction I want to go in my life. And that. That, then again, allowed me to put down more because now I wasn't in this. Like, am I going to do this or am I going to do that? It was. This is the decision that I'm making. This is where my heart is leading me. And I'm going to trust that, and I'm going to trust that I'm going to be okay regardless of what happens in my life. But it has been a. It has been a process, and it does come with a tremendous amount of responsibility because nobody is going to save you from yourself. And we get so attached to things. We get so attached to pain, and we get so attached to the things in our past that have happened to us. And we get so attached to like wanting to do it right and wanting to be somewhere where we're not, that that actually keeps us trapped. So it was just. It's a process. Like there is no fast track. There's no self help book you can read. It's a commitment to yourself about what kind of life do you want to lead, what's important to you. I didn't want to live my life with my heart closed, wearing a cloak of pain until the day I died. And I watch people do this every single day. I have people come to me that have been carrying around shit for decades and they are suffering and then they wonder why their bodies are falling apart, why are they facing illness. Like all these different things that are happening in their world. And if we don't heal these wounds, I truly believe this, they will just keep coming back around. And I was like, dude, I'm out on this. Like, I am going to learn my lessons here. That's come hell or high water. Because it didn't matter what choice I made in my life, do I go right or do I go left? Either choice. I was going with me. I was me by. I was going with me. And I am the common denominator in everything that happens in my life. So even though I was not responsible for what happened, I did play a role in what caused that to be in my life because I was an energetic match for something there. And that made me so angry to have to look at because I wanted to just be a victim of everything that happened and I couldn't be. So that's a long story. I hope you got the answer.

No, it's so good. I did. It's so good. And I think my biggest takeaway from hearing that too is to, you know, is that it's.

It gets to be both.

There is no peak. Like you get to be healing, healed and still unravel and still unraveling, right? It's the true masters. Even if you go to ancient texts, the true masters that say, you know, I know nothing, right? That's when they become enlightened, right? It's the sense of like, you know, you get to live in the end and. And that's just kind of the essence of what I'm experiencing as I'm going.

Into 2025, that that is the truth of life. And I think that that's one of the things I've struggled most around. My brand as well is because everything that I talk about is so polarizing. Meaning one day I'm going to be telling you to rest and slow down and chill out, and the next day I'm going to be telling you to pull your head out of your ass. Because the only way you're going to get something done is by doing the thing you don't want to do. It's both. Right? You can love your body and want to change your body. You can love your partner and not like things about him. There can be things in your business that you want to do and, like, you can create ease around them. And there are going to be things that are hard, like, and we have to. To start to embrace, and that's the discomfort of understanding that it's always going to be both and. And we're so desperately, especially high achievers. We want, like, the right. Just tell me the right way. Just.

Yes, yes, yes, call me the right.

Way, because then we can avoid feeling the things we don't want to feel, and it doesn't work that way. So, you know, if you're willing to get uncomfortable in the gym, then what is causing you to not be willing to get disco uncomfortable in your life? Because it's the same thing. So if you could do it there, you can do it here, but it means you can't avoid yourself anymore.

And then you'll be able to do it for your clients and hold space for your clients.

Yes. Yes. As the most empowered version of. Of you. So.

So good.

Messy. Being. Being human is. Is messy. Being a coach is messy. That's. You know, I believe that every coach, healer, helper out there, I think what brought us all to this work was in an unconscious effort to heal ourselves. And then what we learn along the way is that, oh, it was never about them. It was always about us. And when we heal ourselves, we open the doorway for other people to heal themselves. Not because we've done anything, but because of how we're showing up and how we're modeling by example and because we're allowing them to be in their own discomfort. We're not trying to fix anything for them because we're no longer trying to fix ourselves.

So true. It's so true. Okay, so with that said, I want to be mindful of your time. So what are for those of you who want to go deeper with you, learn more about what you do, work with you. What are some of the best places I can send them?

Oh, gosh, where do I hang out? I'm usually in Instagram stories, so Instagram is an easy place to find me. Uh, I also have my own podcast called the Full Frontal Living Podcast. So we're gonna have. We're gonna have some new episodes coming out, which I've had. You know, I have to tell you, Beverly, like, I haven't recorded a new episode for two, three months because of the place that I was in. It was a decision that I made to just say, you know what? I don't have the capacity for this right now, so I'm not going to force it. I'm just going to let it be. We repurposed episodes, and now sitting down at the mic by myself, the discomfort yesterday that I faced in doing this, like, significant anxiety, and I had to really sit with, like, what's going on for you, Lisa? Oh, I'm trying to get it right. I'm trying to find the perfect message. So I finally hit record and 33 minutes of silence recorded. So that was awesome. After all the discomfort, to just record nothing. So, anyways, the podcast is there, and of course, they can also find me over on my website. LisaCarpenter.ca and we'll make sure that we.

Link all of it. So, Lisa, thank you so much for pouring into me and into us today. I really appreciate it.

I just. I love you. I'm so glad that we finally had the opportunity to connect and meet, and I look forward to. To knowing you better.

Me too. I love you too. Thank you for listening to the PT Profit podcast. If you like this episode, chances are your friends will too. So it would be a huge service to us if you would please leave us a review and share with your friends on your social media channels. When you leave us a review, be sure to take a screenshot of it and email. Email that screenshot to my team atinfo simpson fitness.com and we'll send you a very special Instagram podcast that will show you how to create compelling content so that your ideal clients come to you. And you go from wanting clients to a wait list of clients ready for your services. Thank you so much for listening and we'll see you on the next episode.