Ep 15: In conversation with Laura Holland

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Welcome to the All Is Wellness Podcast with me, Emma Naylor. Join us in open and honest conversations with wellness professionals and industry experts. Welcome back to the All Is Wellness Podcast. This week's guest is Laura Holland. Laura is a positive psychological life coach. She helps her clients say goodbye to their inner critic, find confidence and clarity, and ultimately find a balanced lifestyle that works for them. Laura, have you on the podcast this week?

Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here.

Good. I would love to hear a little bit more about what you've been doing and how you got into life coaching.

Yeah, of course. So I actually, I kind of stumbled into it accidentally. It was never something that was really on the cards, you know, a couple of years ago, but it was something that I discovered through my own healing journey, my own mental health journey, where I kind of hit rock bottom around the age of like 21, 22. I really struggled with body image, with anxiety, with panic attacks, with all sorts of different mental health things. And actually I just, I thought, you know what, Enough is enough and I just want to feel different. I just want to think differently. Obviously, brain transplants aren't a thing, but that was kind of the angle that I was coming from, that if I could save up enough money, it's probably the easier option. And when I was kind of having those thoughts is like, right, come on, Laura, we need to get our act together. You know, we need to sort some things out. So naturally I went to the very reliable source that is Instagram, um, to see where, where I could go or what I could do or what everyone else was trying out. And yeah, there was the whole concept of holistic health that I came across. And so that was how I actually ended up getting my coaching qualification. I found the integrative school for the Integrated School for Integrative Nutrition. That's not the term, but iin. And I basically thought to myself, well, I'm either going to learn how to become good cook and I'm going to know what to do with food, or I'm going to have an incredible journey with holistic health and help heal some of the symptoms and some of the things that I was feeling. So it was kind of a win, win situation because I like food. And so I went on this year long journey of studying holistic health, learning about healing yourself from the inside out. And I fell in love with the concept. It was the first time I'd heard about coaching, even though it was a coaching qualification that I was doing. And I came out of it just having this huge passion to help other women kind of go through what I had changed, what I'd experienced and helping them overcome their anxiety, helping them heal from the inside out and actually doing that work on themselves, for themselves. But there was one piece of the puzzle that was kind of missing from that education and from that program that I went on, which was actually that mindset part. You know, you can put all of the healthy foods into your body, you can have the healthiest lifestyle going. You know, you can be a kale addict and a yoga guru, but if you're not figuring out what's going on, like psychologically in your head and your thoughts and how you're speaking to yourself, then you're not going to get that full sense of well being. So I signed up and started studying positive psychology at East London University and did my postgraduate diploma which I finished last Friday. So now, thank you. I'm now just in the fun four week waiting period to see, to see how that officially went. But yeah, just combining now positive psychology with that holistic health. And so like you said earlier when you're introducing me, helping women create balanced lives that, you know, make them truly happy, that that's health on their terms, you know, not just following what the latest wellness trend is or whatever the latest magazine is suggesting, like figuring out a way to make it work for you. So yeah, I literally, if someone told me five years ago that I would have gone into positive psychological life coaching, I would have just looked at them confused, not really knowing what it meant. So it was a complete chance that I stumbled into this. But actually it's my passion. I love helping women overcome obstacles, to change the narratives in their heads, to rewire those, those thoughts and to actually live healthy, happy lives that make them feel genuinely good. Yeah, it's, it's amazing to take those women on, on their own journeys, but a journey that was very similar to what I suppose I took myself through.

I mean, it's just so amazing hearing you talking about kind of where you've come from and being able to help other women who were in the same situation that you've been in not too long ago. I think that's something that so interesting about coaching because I think the coaching industry, when people kind of hear about it, you know, you don't know everything about everyone's lives and you can't, you know, co, you know, when you hear the term life coach, it's very much, yeah, well, how can you coach someone on life? But yeah, it's Very much about the experiences that we go through and helping other people, women, men, whoever go through that and actually say, these are the things I did and I'd love to be able to help you get through the other side. And I think it's so, so amazing to use something that was so painful and hard in such a positive way to help others. So I think it's, I think it's amazing being able to do that. And I love kind of what you said around fixing from the inside. I think often we think of health, you know, I think there's much more conversation now around mental health and kind of mental well being and balanced life. But I think a lot of the time people used to think if I eat well, if I exercise, if I drink enough water, yeah, I'll be, I'll feel much better. And don't get me wrong, we all know that that definitely helps. Having that lifestyle is going to put you far ahead of how you would feel if you were at home not drinking any water, not sleeping and eating junk food all day. But I think there's, there's still so much work to be done around of the fact that there's no shame in having a coach. There's no shame in having a therapist. You know, I've had, I've had therapists since I was 14 and yes, some of them didn't work out, they weren't a right match to me. But you know, when you meet the right therapist and you have the right coach like I've had in the last two years, wow. My life has just absolutely skyrocketed and absolutely changed, you know, beyond belief. So I think it's amazing to kind of see people moving into this space and really wanting to help others off the back of, you know, situations that they've been in.

Yeah. And I think that just like you said, is it's number one. It's an amazing thing to be able to turn like whatever you've been through into actually helping others who are going through it. You know, helping them see that there is a light at the end of the tunnel, there is an alternative reality for them, they can change how they're feeling. But yeah, it's, yeah, life coaching. I, I would have been one of those people that rolled their eyes at, you know, how can you guide someone through their life? Like, what a load of rubbish. But it is, it's something that, yeah, just you don't often and even, you know, with this whole pandemic and staying at home and being locked in our houses and not Being able to go out, you know, we still haven't had a lot of chances to actually just genuinely speak out loud about what we want. Because when you're talking to like your friends or your family, you know, it's a two way street. If you start talking about your hopes and dreams, chances are that everyone else is going to pipe up about their hopes and dreams, which is obviously great conversation to have, but sometimes then that kind of puts a lid on where that conversation goes. And so having a life coach or having someone in that profession that you can just speak openly about, about, actually this is what I want to do with my life with no judgment, without any bias, just someone who's sitting there going, cool, okay, let's help you get there. Let's help you make that your reality. That we don't often get that. And I think that's the real power in coaching and therapy or whatever, you know, psychological service that you're, you're using for either your mental health or for your life. You know, you don't often get that chance to almost selfishly just talk all about you for an hour a week. You know, it's, it's a bizarre thing to say, wait a minute, we don't get that. But that's the real power in it, you know, just exploring where you want to go, what you want to do.

I completely agree with that. And I think you're, I think what you said around, you know, having that hour to talk about you, it's, you know, we're often told in society, it's not all about you. You're too loud, you're too this, you know, I'm such a loud person. I've always been such a loud person. Like, even when I listen back to these podcasts, I'm like, I'm so much louder than a lot of people. For a really long time, I felt that that was a really bad thing. I always felt like I was too much, I was too loud, I was too much energy when it came into a room. And actually there are some people that that's perfect for and there are some people that wouldn't ever want to work with me, for example, you know, don't want to engage in the podcast because they're like, she's a lot, she's very loud. And that, and that's fine. But it's taken me a really long time to kind of get to that stage and sort of think, no, it is fine for me to just talk about myself with my coach. It is fine for me to talk about how great this thing was that I did. But I think often we're told, don't talk about yourself, it's not about you. You know, it's a two way conversation. And that's why we need to have the help from professionals to say, actually this is about you and I want to understand what's going on in your head and I want to help you get from A to B. And now it's much more accessible, it's much more accepted. And I think some that's something that hopefully post pandemic, people have started investing in themselves. More people have started looking after themselves physically and mentally. So it'd be quite interesting to sort of hear how you've been working with clients through the pandemic. Now we're kind of coming out, what have you sort of seen in your clients and what are you mostly helping them through?

So I am mostly helping them through that whole inner critic piece, that whole voice within your head that's chatting a load of crap to you. Because we've all had a lot of time to actually be sitting with our thoughts and to be listening to our thoughts. Whereas before the pandemic, you know, there was always a plan, people were much more busy, you know, you were seeing friends. You could kind of keep that internal chatter at rest or at least distract yourself from it with everything else that was going on in your life. And so when everything got put on pause, there was such a big wave of people going, wait a minute, I don't like how I'm talking to myself. I don't like the things that I'm saying about myself internally. And that's, you know, again, like, that's something that I struggled with, not necessarily in the pandemic, but beforehand. Going in front of a mirror and thinking, oh, you look ridiculous today. Or thinking just like, oh, no one's gonna think that you're good at that. Having that constant critical voice inside your head. And when all of your connections are cut off, when your only connection to the outside world is through social media and online, it's really easy to start perceiving things in different ways. It's really easy to start thinking, oh, they have their life together because they've made a banana bread and started doing hiit workouts once a day. So they've clearly got everything together. But actually you don't see the real picture through that. But it's easy to build up these different narratives in your head. And then your inner critic, your inner critic starts feeding off that. It's like, well, yeah, You've not made a banana bread, so you're lazy. You, you've not done a hiit workout for the last 30 days in a row. So you're a slob. And it's changing. It's kind of being aware of that narrative, first of all, is something that is difficult but is a pivotal thing. Because once you name something, you take the power away from it. So doing that work to actually separate your inner critic from your own voice, because often it gets confused with it and you know, you be sat there thinking, well, they're my thoughts. I'm thinking about that, about myself. And while, yes, it's happening in your own head and that is your own mind and all of that, the inner critic might be a different type of voice. It might be a bit angrier than your normal inner voice. It might be. It might sound like a relative or a friend or, you know, I realized during the pandemic that mine was very, very similar to a girl that used to go to my school who was awful to me and I was like, oh, wait a minute, like that's, you know, I won't say the name, but that's, you know, sabotaging Susan, let's call her. And so, yeah, there's just been this huge wave of people realizing that they just don't like the way that they're talking to themselves. They want to be their own cheerleaders, they want to be encouraging themselves to go after their dreams and think, yeah, I can do this, I can go after that. I can do this with my life. Like, why not? Rather than thinking, oh, that'll never happen to me and everyone's always going to have it better than me and I'm just going to be stuck in this life cycle forever. So I think that's definitely the biggest thing that I've seen with my clients. But also it's not just something that's been coming up to them as a struggle, but it's something that they've been coming to me thinking they want to change, they want to work on this. They're recognizing that the way that they're talking to themselves when they're sat on their own, when they've not got those distractions, isn't what they want for themselves. They want to have that different narrative. So, yeah, that's kind of become now my focus, which again, like the positive psychology, like going into that then has really, really helped to give them those evidence based tools and those techniques that, you know, you do have the ability to change your thoughts and change your Reality, like, within you, you just need the help and like, the support, the guidance, like the kind of the steering from. From me as a coach. But actually, you know, you can do all of that work, like for yourself, by yourself.

It's the compare and despair thing that just resonates and really, really stands out so much. Yeah, because exactly as you said, during the lockdown, we were all stuck behind our computers. We were all on our phones. And you're totally right. You know, I saw people doing. I was one of those people. First lockdown, I was running, I was doing hit workouts. Towards the end of the first lockdown, none of my jeans fit me. And I went out and I bought new jeans because my jeans didn't fit me. And, you know, there is this. There is all these kind of memes and all these sort of, you know, Instagram stories going around saying, can you tell us whether summer is going to be open, whether I have to go back to the gym? And there is kind of this toxic, you know, this toxic environment of saying, you know, you have to get ready for summer. You have to feel a certain way for summer. And, you know, for someone like me who's gone through a huge personal development journey, I do feel very secure in myself. I feel, you know, I've done a lot of. A lot of work. I can still let that get to me. So I often think of the people who haven't done the work, who haven't got. Who haven't found coaching, who haven't found a therapist yet, who don't. Maybe don't even know that they're doing that to themselves and sat there at home comparing themselves and comparing their life to someone's 1%.

Yeah. So bad.

And I often, I often say this. You know, I often. People will sometimes message me and say, oh, you and. You and your boyfriend look so happy together. It looks so great. Your relationship looks perfect. And we've got a great relationship. Absolutely. But we have arguments. But I don't post us arguing about what we're having for dinner or which take away or who's gonna take the dog out for a walk. You know, all those kind of minor things that you bicker about, no one posts them. You post the lovely dog walk, you post the lovely lunch you've gone for. And I, I often have to remind myself, emma, that's not reality. And everyone has their own journey that they're going on. And I think it's really, really important for us. Yes. To be able to be inspired by what other people are doing. You Know, I look at other people who are doing these great podcasts, other people who are running non profits, other people who are, you know, absolutely killing it in their business. I want to be inspired by them rather than feel that I'm in competition with them.

Yeah.

And it's so important for that, our mindset, because our mind wants to switch back into competition. And it's so important to keep reminding ourselves it's, we're not in competition. The only person we are in competition is with ourselves from yesterday to do better.

Yeah.

Than we did yesterday. And that's it.

Yeah. No, exactly. And like you said, it's. It's a really interesting one because you, you, at some point, you don't even realize that you're in that place. It's so easy to not even realize that that's the mindset that you're in. You know, like this whole summer arriving soon, I realized yesterday at the gym, I was like, I think this is the first time that I've been in the gym in a, like in the month of May, and I have not been like, aggressively going for it to try and get into a bikini. I was, I think this might be the first time. And I went, I got her. And I was like, normally I would be trying to diet. Normally I would have got the waist trainer out that I bought off a very bad Instagram advert one year. And trying to squeeze into that, you know, like, get the booty tea out. You know, other detox teas that destroy your internal systems are available. But, you know, like buying into all of that and didn't really even realize that I was comparing myself to the likes of Kendall Jenner, who, you know, is that lots of people recently like, compared themselves to in bikini pictures. And it's just like, come on. Like even that they're even like the comparing ourselves. We're comparing ourselves to the 1%, like you said, our Instagram feeds. Like, if I look at my personal one, the last time I posted was October. A lot's happened since then, but someone could easily just click through, not even click into the photos, but scroll down my profile and think, oh, she's got everything together. She's living the best life ever. And, you know, there's nothing ever goes wrong for her. But I haven't posted in, you know, eight months. And there's lots of people who are like that. And it's, you know, you only see the highlights and it's. So it's easy to fall into that comparison trap because it's a fine line between being inspired and wanting to change for very valid reasons. You know, wanting to change your life to improve yourself, but for yourself. But it's a very slippery slope to then changing yourself because you need to fit into a society's expectation or society's mold or because you think that's where you need to be because that's what you see online. It's such a, yeah, a slippery slope to kind of go down from that innocent place to quickly an unhealthy place.

And I know exactly what Kendall Jenner picture you're talking about, the red bikini that she was modeling. Because I saw that on everyone's Instagram page saying, wow, doesn't she look amazing? And actually she's now doing a kind of four part documentary all about mental health. And she's one person that you look at and you probably think money, tick, look ticks, amazing lifestyle ticks, amazing job ticks, got her own businesses, ticks. And actually that is all wonderful and great to have. But as you said in the beginning, if it doesn't come from the inside, all of those things don't make up for the fact that she's still struggling with anxiety, that she still wakes up in the middle of the night with panic attacks. And I saw lots of people commenting, saying, well, what does she have? What does she have to be anxious about? What does she have to be stressed about? And I still think, yeah, I still think that until we stop having these conversations of what does she have to be stressed about full well not knowing what's actually going on in her head, unfortunately, we're always going to have this compare and despair because you never 100% get the full picture. So it's so great to see that you're working with people to help them overcome that and really, really understand that it comes from within. And all of the external things are nice to have, but it does come from within. What would you say from your sort of personal journey? And I know there's going to be a lot of people listening to this who probably feel exactly the same. What was for you the turning point where you just thought, I don't want to do this anymore, something has to change.

So it was kind of a buildup of moments. So it was since I went to lots of counselors and lots of therapists and I was sat in a GP's room and he was telling me that I should probably go speak to someone else and I was like, no, I've speak. I've sat on four different sofas, I've talked through I've almost out talked my issues, I didn't want to talk through them. And I was like, there just needs to be surely another way to work on myself or heal myself rather than digging up everything that I've gone through with a brand new counsellor for the fifth time. And so there was that kind of that sitting there thinking, I want to try something else. It had worked for some certain areas of my mental health. It had helped me move past and get over some trauma that I'd gone through. But actually I was just, I was done a little bit with talking, which is why, you know, the whole nutrition piece just worked brilliant for me to kind of move into that space. But there was other things as well, you know, before even sitting in that doctor's surgery. There's a story that a lot of my clients, if they're listening, would have heard before. But I was on holiday with my family and we were over in Australia and visiting lots of relatives over there. But we were spending a few days in Sydney before we went and saw the whole gang. And I was walking through a street with my family and I kid you not, every woman, and it's again, it's this comparison piece, but every woman on that street I was looking at and thinking, oh, I don't look like them, I should look like them. I'm not good enough, I don't look good enough as I am. You know, there were a lot of different women on there. So I was going from one minute thinking, oh, I need blonder hair, to maybe I should try black hair, maybe that would work, to oh, I need a boo bot job, to no, we need to lose weight. And it was just such an aggressive moment to realize actually, like I was looking in windows, I was walking past shops of. And I was just like, I just don't like how I look. But I also hate how I'm talking to myself. And I took myself out of the situation. I turned around to my parents, probably lied to them and gave them some rubbish about having to go back to the hotel or I forgot something or whatever. I just ran out of there and ran back and I, I was like, I just, I need to have something different. I can't be walking through a street in Sydney, you know, on one of the loveliest holidays with my family. I shouldn't be running off feeling so upset at myself because I'm comparing myself to like the last 50 women that I just saw. So there were lots of moments that were very similar to that where I was like, something needs to, it was just exhausting. It was just, it was taking up all of my mental energy, all of my mental space. And so that compared with then actually really being like struggling with that anxiety that comes from comparing to yourself and not feeling like you're good enough as you are and not having your, your body image together, not being tied that in that mold or in that stereotype that you should be as like a. I think it was 18 at the time. But yeah, that happened over probably a period of a year until I was then sat in that doctor's seat and they said, maybe you should talk with someone through it. And I was like, I just, I know it's going to work. I know it will work. But I don't have it within me to actually talk through someone and explain it all all over again because I'd seen like quite a few. So that was where kind of holistic health and looking at practices that I could do for myself. And that's, you know, something that I love with my clients. So although we speak once a week, we're. We're not digging up the past in coaching. We're very much focusing on the present and the future. So how are we feeling right now? What's not working for us right now and how do we want that to look different in the future? So, so rather than kind of going through. So this is my life story and this is where I am up to now in the present. And this is why I'm sat on your coat in your sofa. You know, I want to change and I want to change. This is how we're going to get there. And then giving them like the tools, the techniques, the activities to do in their own time so that they really are, although they're discovering things with me, although they might be having aha moments and they might be gaining clarity through our conversation and learning new things. You know, they're putting in the work for themselves, by themselves, in the comfort of their own home. So they've got that accountability to, to do, to make the change for themselves. And I think that's, that's one of the most powerful things that you can do, you know, doing that work on yourself. Because ultimately, you know, you are the one that wakes up every day with you. You're the one that lives in your own head all of the time. You're the one that hears. You're in a critic. You're the one that hears the self sabotaging. No one else hears that. No one else knows what it's like to be you. So being Able to. To change that narrative, to change your life, to change how you're feeling by yourself, with the support of someone who's qualified and has expertise and can give you that guidance and that kind of almost like a little roadmap of how to get to where you want to be. But doing that work for you, it's so much more empowering than just being talked to or being asked to just explain what's happened in the last 10 years and why you've got to where you are now. It's a completely different shift. And obviously both. Both are valid. Both work alongside each other. But, yeah, I just got to that point where I was like, I just. I want to focus on how to change rather than what's gone wrong in order for me to want to change.

Exactly what you just said there around. You know, I laughed because it said, I think you should go and talk to someone. And it's. I heard that so much since the age of 13, 14, you should go and talk to someone. You should go and talk to someone. As you said, it kind of got to the point where I said, I've told my story so many times. I've said what I've got to say. And that's why, for me, I felt, you know, the therapist that I went to, I never. I didn't go for myself. I went because I thought that's what I should do. And then around four years ago, four years ago, I found this amazing therapist. And we got to the end of our last session, which I didn't know was our last session, and he turned to me and said, look, I think you're great. You're amazing. You've done so much work. But I'm not going to let you sit here and pay me just to have conversations with me anymore. My role is not for you to sit here for the rest of your life talking about what's happened. You've spoken about what's happened. We've worked through it. And exactly as you said, you now need to go and live in the present and focus on the future, things that you want to do. And I felt this overwhelming fear of, kind of rejection, of, oh, he doesn't want to work with you anymore. He says he's done with me. And he said, but I've done what I can do. Now it's your turn to pick it up and do what you can do and move forward, not live in the past. And that was such a powerful turning point. So I loved what you said around getting people to move forward and really, really living in the present and not kind of reflecting too much on the past. I think that's so powerful.

Yeah. And, you know, there is. I think that highlights it perfectly that at certain stages of your journey, wherever you are, you know, certain coaches or therapists or counselors or holistic health practitioners, whatever it is, they come to you for like, part of your journey. So, you know, it's life coach isn't someone that you're going to have for the rest of your life. They are literally for that piece of the puzzle that you're just trying to work on, that you're just trying to figure, where does that fit in order to create that bigger plan, to create that bigger picture. So sometimes it might be your therapist for a certain period of time, sometimes it might be a coach to help you move forward, and then that might look other things, and then you might want to go to a therapist. It's a lifelong journey, but you need all those different people, you need those different perspectives, you need those different expertises to help you get to wherever it is you. You necessarily want to go. It's not like a, a one box or one thing fits all. I can't remember the phrase I'm trying to say, but yeah, it's. It's not one size fits all. There we go. That's like one box fits all. That's definitely not right. But yeah, it's. You know, life is kind of like that big picture puzzle and people can come in at those different times to help you just find your way a little bit and help you fit those in a bit. A bit easier than if you were trying to do it on your own.

Exactly. Laura, what would be your one piece of advice for our listeners today?

Oh, gosh, no pressure.

I don't tell anyone. I'm going to ask.

I was gonna say I didn't get any warning about that. One Gosh. One tip for your listeners. Hmm. You know what? I'm gonna do a long comparison and social media cleanses, because I think we've talked a lot about comparing ourselves. And comparison often stems from the wonderful world of online social media. And just having a look, like if you are struggling with comparing yourself, if you are finding that, you know, you easily get triggered by different people or by different scenarios that are coming up, actually taking a check in to see who you're even allowing in your online space. I can't remember who it was, but I saw someone recently. I mean, conveniently, it was actually on social media that I read this, but they said that you know, think of your social media feed as your house. Like, who would you invite in? Who would you allow to have a voice? You wouldn't allow people to come in if they're going to make you feel a bit crappy and make you feel less than and make you feel like you need to change. So don't let them in, you know, mute them, unfollow them. It's like having almost like a cleanse of who you're allowing into your online space. I think especially because even though I don't know what stage of lockdown we're even in anymore or what phase or whatever it's called, but in this pandemic world, we're still using our phones a lot to connect with one another, to talk to each other, so it's an easy place for that comparison to kind of slip in. So, yeah, I think my little tip would be if you are struggling with that, then turning to those places like social media where you're finding comparison is coming up for you and giving yourself a cleanse, allowing yourself to say no. Rebecca, from year eight that I sat next to in maths, I'm not going to watch your stories anymore because whenever I do I always feel the need to go on a diet or I always feel the need to change myself. And actually I don't need to change myself and I haven't spoken to you since year eight maths. So we're just gonna end this here, you know, like giving yourself the power to set those boundaries and will not allow people who are triggering that comparison, triggering that, that self esteem review almost to like, just, just block them out, just take them away. The world is not going to end if you mute a couple of people that make you feel a bit shitty, you know. So that's my little tip, I think.

I love that. No, it's so, it's so true. And I, I always have. I had a social media cleanse the other week and it felt so good. So anyone who hasn't done it, absolutely recommend it. If I'm on that list for you, that's absolutely fine too. But no, I think it's really, I think it's really, really important to do that and you know, as you said, not let people into your space, take your energy who don't make you feel good and don't light you up and make you feel the best version of yourself. So absolutely love that tip. Laura, I've loved talking to you on this week's podcast. I hope everyone else absolutely loves this episode. If you want to find out how you can work with Laura, please head over to her Instagram which is Ivewell with Laura. You can find out about her monthly membership and her one to one coaching. Again. Laura, thank you so much for being so honest and open and such a wonderful guest this week.

Thank you for having me. Yeah, thank you so much.

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