Ep. 181: Empowered Confidence and Authentic Living with Allison Guilbault

Today's guest is Allison Gilbert, who's a licensed therapist, life empowerment, and mindset coach. She specializes in anxiety, trauma, sex, and intimacy, and she's the owner and operator of the Mindful Mental Health an online practice offering therapy for individuals. Allison helps her clients let go of shame and limiting beliefs, reconnecting to their confidence and reclaiming their empowerment, and realign with their highest purpose. As always, if you get benefit from this episode, or if there's other episodes in the past that you felt were helpful to you, please give us a subscribe, as well as if there's anybody out there that you think would benefit from hearing any of these episodes, please feel free to share with them. And also, please give us a like and a follow on Instagram @JasonWasserLMFT. And if you're interested in any therapy or coaching services for you, for your business, or for anybody in your circle that you think would benefit, please reach out to us directly. As always, we hope you enjoy today's interview. All right, welcome back, everybody. So as promised, as usual, we're gonna have an awesome conversation about personal development, insight, self-awareness, all the good stuff, self-esteem, all the things that we're all dealing with, including me, the therapist. And as you know, today's guest, Allison, is also a therapist, and she's up in New Jersey, where we're already discussing how we have very similar— my family's up there. So Allison, welcome.

Thank you. Thank you very much.

So let's start off first. You know, it's funny, I joke around, someone came to me a few weeks ago, and they're like, you know, I'm thinking about becoming therapist, I'm going to graduate school. And I'm like, great, let's sit down and have a cup of coffee so I can convince you not to. So, and it turned out the person who I— at the end of the conversation, I'm like, all right, fine, you should really be a therapist. So I'm really curious about what your story was and your journey of how, you know, that first became the thing that you decided you want to do and what that journey was like. And also, you know, once you realize that you are doing this, was there any kind of pivots or ahas of like, oh, what I thought this was like is absolutely not what I really want to do or what I want to focus on.

Oh my God. Yes to all of that. Yeah, I think my career story, as many people in the, I would say, like wellness, mental health communities, healing communities are, my story started in my own healing journey, right? So I suffered from a ton of anxiety when I was younger. I'm in my 40s now, but when I was in my teens and my 20s, I had pretty profound anxiety that ultimately manifested itself even to what we traditionally think of anxiety. I was having panic attacks. I couldn't breathe. And in one particular day, it even landed me in the ER. And I remember while I was there, first of all, there was not a lot of resources that were gifted to me afterwards. It was like, you've had a panic attack. Good luck. Godspeed. No one can ever—

Here's some medication. Right.

I didn't even get medication.

Oh.

Step up, right? They were just like, don't be so stressed out. And I'm like, I'm a 15-year-old girl, like, try that again, right? Um, but yeah, I didn't really get connected to services. I didn't get connected to a therapist. I didn't even get connected to medication. Uh, and I felt a lot of shame, right? And I remember coming home from the emergency room and like begging my mother, like, don't tell anybody. Like, say I had a migraine, say I had the flu, appendicitis, make something up. But, you know, God forbid I might be struggling. And that carried with me into college. I always had an interest in psychology, not particularly mental health. My career actually started in forensics. So I was very involved in, you know, kind of like SVU, which, you know, had just come out. I was like very interested in like, what's an FBI profile? Profiler, which actually doesn't even exist as a real title. So originally my career started with, I wanted to get involved in sex crimes and doing the psychology behind sexual assault and things like that. And at the time, while there's tons of programs now, there really wasn't a lot of programs then. So I started with NYU and was just in like a run-of-the-mill psychology program. And while I was learning about psychology, less so the forensics, I sort of almost started to kind of practice what I was being taught. And I noticed my mental health really shifting. And so I just became almost selfishly very involved in really learning more about the brain, learning more about coping skills, right? I don't even think they called it then back— they called it that, but it was back then. But I was learning much more about just like the mental health field, psychology in general. My career took a giant pivot. I became a researcher for the FBI and a private investigator. So, but all the while for about 10 years, I was still volunteering a lot in mental health. So I worked as a sexual assault counselor in an emergency room on a volunteer basis. I worked at Planned Parenthood. I was volunteering at schools. I was really doing like any, any place I could put my hands on connecting to the community and really, especially with teenagers, especially with people who are in crisis. Helping them just navigate really tough waters was my passion. And about 10 years into my career, I had one of those, like, very cliché burnouts and was like, what am I doing with my life? I'm in my 30s, this big, bad career. I've climbed the corporate ladder. I've seen some success, and I hate everything I'm doing. And I really am then very, very connected to the mental health work. And so I went back to school. I had already had a master's degree, but By the time that I went back, my master's degree no longer qualified me for a license, so I had to go back in my 30s, um, and which was an interesting, you know, turn of events of having to like do internships in your 30s, right? Go back to like the drawing board. But I was fortunate, I got to flip sort of my career. So I had done all this advocacy for survivors, um, in the mental health field, and when I went back to school, I actually role-reversed and I started working with, um, offenders, people involved in the criminal justice system. I worked at Rikers Island in solitary confinement as a therapist, so it gave me a very rounded view and an intense view, I guess, of, you know, I did a lot of trauma work. I did a lot of, um, just like, you know, big, yeah, big T trauma work that birthed my career in this extremely strange path, um, into where I presently am today, which is in private practice.

That's awesome. Yeah, it's interesting. I, I, when I first started therapy grad school, I'm like, I'm gonna be the best child therapist. I grew up with family trauma and parents' divorce, and I'm just gonna work with like kids because I was coming from like informal education, like camps and after-school programs and stuff like that beforehand. So it was like, that was gonna be the good fit, right? And knowing that when I was a kid and I went to therapy It was like old-school Freudian play therapy stuff. And the guy was really nice and really like, you know, I have gratitude for him, but it wasn't the way I was trained, uh, at my graduate school, which is very postmodern, very much solution-focused, and very much non-pathology-based, more strategic in how, you know, how we think about things and how that keeps us stuck, right? So it was such a big shift. And then all of a sudden I started seeing families and couples and entrepreneurs. And like, it's like something that I never even thought that I would get into. And then every once in a while I have that kid and I'm like, oh yeah, this was— this is why, right?

And it's—

and they're, they're all great and it's all wonderful, but I realized, you know, seeing one population all day would not be— would not be good for me or my clients. Have you found that as you see, as you've evolved in your career?

Oh my gosh, yes. And you know, it's, it's funny because obviously, as we all do, I follow, you know, social media And I see this message really being put forward of like, find your niche, find your thing, just do that one thing. And I actually filmed a reel that I haven't posted yet, but I was like, I would lose my mind if I only saw one type of client, right? So for me, actually being really expansive, right, and open-minded and not really shoving myself into a box of like, this is what therapy is supposed to look like, this is the client I'm supposed to see, you know, has really helped me have fulfillment in my job because for a long time I did kind of just, you know, like I saw men for a long time. I just saw men and then I just saw members of the queer community and now and then I, you know, you, you'd ask is something, does it come up and look different than you were expecting it to? In my brain when I started therapy, I thought therapy really was reserved wrongly for, you know, people with big T trauma. People have gone through like all this stuff and over the course of my career I've been pulling in sort of just you know, people who are maybe don't have these huge survival stories and yet they're still navigating relationships, they're still navigating parents, they're still trying to figure out their lives. And as I let some more of that in, my, my clients just started changing. Yeah. And now I see all different types of people from all different walks of life. And I think that makes me— I know that's not everybody's jam, but that makes me a better therapist for sure.

Yeah.

I couldn't do trauma all day, that's for sure.

And it's so interesting because I saw someone last— I had a family friend who unfortunately passed and we were at the the Shiva, the week of Jewish services and mourning. And this person's known me since I was 14 years old, who was there. I mean, a lot of people in the community have known me since I was a little kid. And she came out, she's like, oh, you must be really busy. There's a lot of mental health in the world right now. A lot of major, like, whatever. And a lot of crazies, I think the person used. And I'm like, well, I don't see the crazy, but I still have a pretty full practice. And she's like, yeah, I mean, I'm like, well, there's a term called the worried well. And it's the run-of-the-mill, like exactly what you were just describing. It's the run-of-the-mill people who just have stuff going on in their life. They don't have anything that they would point to as devastating or catastrophic that ever necessarily happened to them, which is a big blessing. Um, and I jokingly say those are the ones I worry about the most. Um, but at the end of the day, it's those who are, whether they're entrepreneurs, whether they're couples, whether they're young professionals, that You know, maybe because there wasn't anything that has been catastrophic, maybe there's— there might be something missing that isn't motivating them to look for more.

Absolutely.

And that was my response to this old friend. And it was like, oh, I didn't— I didn't think about it that way. Right. So, so it's interesting that old school, you know, some people still carry that old school therapy mentality as it's for capital T trauma. So if you were abused, if there was neglect, if you're an offender, if there's a court system, if there's mandated court-ordered stuff, which my practice doesn't touch any of that.

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And part of something that's been manifested out of all the work I've done is now I'm not only a therapist, but I speak on things like this. But then I also do coaching. And part of the reason that I did coaching— one, it's very popular. People look for it. And so I want to create space for it. But it is— therapy to me is helping someone heal, work through their lives. Coaching to me is almost exactly what you said, which is someone who maybe doesn't have all this like grief to work through, stuff to work through, but they're just ultimately not very fulfilled. Right. And so many people have that story and you can take it from a therapeutic way. You can take it from a coaching way. Right. It really, for me, depends on the personality type, what they're looking— are we looking to kind of look back and see why we've created these thoughts and we're unfulfilled, or are we just like, I'm here, let's, let's just check forward. But that is certainly something that, that affects our mental health, right? Like, we don't think of personal fulfillment, purpose, all of these big buzzwords. We don't immediately associate them with mental health. We think of depression, trauma, anxiety. But, you know, our mental health becomes better, right? Understandably, when we actually like what we're doing, when we actually care to build relationships, when we have good boundaries, right? When we're really thinking about what we want out of life, listening to our intuition. So, you know, I always like to bring all of that stuff into the context of mental health.

Yeah, and it makes sense because I see like very small percentages of my practice that I've seen over the years when we talk about career advancement, like let's say they're working in the education system, right? There's not much career advancement. Usually you'll stay in your position for your entire career, right? If you're a 5th grade teacher, you're pretty much going to stay within the upper elementary school. There's no— unless you're going to go back and you want to go into admin. But a lot of times people are like, no, no, I'm comfortable where I'm at. And I wonder, and I've been playing with this, that, you know, the duality of comfort. On one side, it's fantastic to be comfortable. It's fantastic to love that specific thing, be in that niche. And at the same time, when you do the same thing day in, day out for a 35-year career— and I'm using education specifically as an example because I see that a lot in that field— there's not much, even in nonprofit world. But, you know, but there's not much of that growth. And it's You know, at what point does monotony start kicking in? And maybe there are people out there that thrive on that. They thrive. The monotony is not bad. And there's, right, different types of personalities. And that may not be where they're like, hey, I am fulfilled and it is meaningful. And then we kind of have to be okay with that because we're like, hmm, that may not work for us, right? And that's the cool thing about having checking our bias.

Yeah, yeah.

In our sessions.

Yeah, absolutely. You know, and we are so vastly different, right? So, you know, I'm a big believer in like listening to your intuition, right? And like, I'll tell clients, like, drop into your body. How does things feel? And what feels right for me might feel wrong for you and vice versa. So if you are answering the question, am I, am I authentically fulfilled in whatever it is you're doing? And you can, you know, confidently say yes, you're on the right track. Right? If it's when you're sort of noticing that discomfort, right? Like, I'm envisioning something else that I really want to do, and I'm stifling that voice. It's like, that's where the work can be done. And I think for the people that, you know, do recognize, maybe I want more, there is often immediately a thought that follows, like, but should I, right? Like, so if I'm a 5th grade school teacher and I've put in, you know, I don't know, 10 years, right? Having the thought maybe I want to do something else is actually quite terrifying, right? You know, like there is a lot of, you know, kind of like sunk cost fallacy and like, well, I put this much time in, so therefore it would be bananas to shift and pivot, right? We do this in relationships sometimes, right? How would I start over again?

That whole sliding versus deciding paradigm, right?

Yeah, absolutely right. And so that's like if you're noticing that stuff pop up. If you're authentically happy, rock on, stay with what you're doing, right? But it's like when we're noticing the thoughts that are creeping up that are like, I don't know, this, this formula doesn't feel right. Maybe it super served me 10 years ago, right? Maybe I was in the right place or the right relationship or the right career, but now I'm noticing that I want a little more. It's very, very difficult, especially in like the culture in which we live where, you know, consistency is really valued, right? Like, right, obedience is absolutely change is seen as sometimes flaky. It can be really hard to sort of open your mind and really get curious of like, where is this thought coming from and how could I creatively look at it?

Yeah, that makes sense. And it's one of the reasons why I transitioned out of nonprofit work was that whole thing of I realized I can't have most personality types of bosses that aren't, you know, One of the things that I've— maybe to put it more into context— was I'm a big fan of the Enneagram personality styles, and to see what types of personalities end up in certain roles and what type of— right, and, and how that could be championed by other numbers and, you know, of the personality types. Not everybody in positions of leadership have that champion, championing personality versus the more, unfortunately, sometimes dictator and admin and, you know, type of thing. So I've— so I realized that when I was still split in practice, that part-time I was in practice, part-time I was doing nonprofit work that had nothing to do with therapy, but how much personality autonomy was so important to me that led me more and more— and even working in two group practices, yeah, how that autonomy wasn't there with the personalities led me to taking that massive, massive risk. I, I remember— I haven't— I don't think I've ever shared this story. I remember that I was, um, at least not on the podcast, where I was in a group practice and everybody in that practice was getting divorced, all the clinicians, all around the same time. So it was really bad, like, you know, juju going on there. And I remember, like, negotiating with them about, like, an increase in that, you know, the standard therapist insurance split of percentages, and even noticing for 5% more over the course of the year, that would only net me a couple thousand dollars more. Meanwhile, I'm paying overhead, I'm paying rate, whatever the percentage was. I'm like, wait, I can— I'd rather pay that to Uncle Sam than pay that to somebody else.

Sure.

And I remember going and looking at offices, and I had no clue anything at that point of business. I had no clue, like, you know, just be a therapist and how scary that was. And then the person I was looking at an office with a colleague of mine backed out 2 days before we signed the lease. So there goes from 50% of the office lease being covered to now, yeah, 100% mine. And that was one of the most terrifying all-in decisions that at that time I think was $700 a month.

Yeah, it's a lot when you're starting a business.

It's a lot when you're starting a new business and how like nights of losing sleep I had.

Yeah.

To now, thankfully to the pandemic, not even having an office, but having rent that was increased over the years. But that was one of the greatest, greatest jumps that I took. But it was also the blessing in disguise that that person actually did back out from that. So I'm wondering if there's anything like that that's ever popped up in your career.

Oh my gosh, yeah. You know, I have this theory that I share with clients that like for any big risk that we're taking, we kind of need 3 things, right? Which is flexibility, creativity, and patience. And in your story, like all of those things came up. We're gonna try to make a plan, right? And it's like the world has other plans for us for sure. But yeah, when I tell the story of like, you know, I had this big aha moment. I was sitting in a meeting. I decided my boss was— he was a terrible human. And I was like, I cannot work. I cannot do this another day of my life, right? Like, I just can't. And, you know, so I quit. I put my notice in, you know, called my board. I'm like, I wanna go back to licensing. And they're like, haha, you need a whole nother degree. And I did it right. I went back to school, I got a free internship, and then today I'm, you know, the proud owner of a practice. I have, you know, flexibility in my schedule. I have clients I love. But the part of the story that is equally important is like, that was rough, right? That didn't come with a lot of confidence. You know, I was sitting in the dark, you know, hoping to hell that I would figure this out. And I lived in New York City at the time, right? I was sitting on a ton of debt. New York City ain't a cheap, cheap place to live, right? And, you know, ultimately what I did is I called a friend who owned a bar. I had bartended for a while and I was like, can I be your hap— I'll take any shift. Like, what can I do? I just need to make money.

Yeah.

So I was going to school, I was bartending, you know, the graveyard shifts, the happy hour shifts for, for this like Monday afternoon, like the time no one hangs out in New York City. And I was, I was interning and that was a struggle. And, you know, I, in that time, I didn't know what I was doing then. I've, I've luckily had some reflection since, but I was really just leaning into my self-trust, right? Like, which is just, I don't know what this is gonna look like and I just have to trust myself that I'm gonna figure it out, right? And it's gonna be tough. Yeah. And, you know, it became easier over time. And I think a lot of these big challenges when we're talking to anyone, you know, clients, listeners about, you know, you're noticing that voice, it's telling you you want more, telling things aren't working. It's enlightening, it's empowering. It also comes with fear, right? It's just like inherently, like empowerment just comes also with fear, um, and a lot of strategy and a lot of pivots, you know, and a lot of just like trusting yourself.

Yeah, I'm a big fan of asking my clients and challenging them to say, tell me all the reasons how it can work out more than all the reasons that you have already created that it can't? And if you can't come up with the, the primary, the idea of how the ways it can work out, then that's exactly where we need to start. And who can we bring in? You don't have to do it alone. Oh, and what do you mean? Or who's out there doing it that you might want to reach out to that you don't know, but take 20 minutes to Google and see who shows up or on social media that's doing that niche and say, hey, can I have 15 minutes of your time? People are willing to do that. And I know, especially with social media, I mean, when I was in graduate school, 2003-2005, there was like, you know, Facebook. That was it really. So it wasn't really like getting your— getting a, you know, full social media, you know, platform before you even started practicing to build up a reputation. Now it's a game changer. Podcasts and YouTube and you have— I mean, it's just so incredible what's available to anybody moving into any career that Yeah, someone else out there in the country or in the world might be doing it and they don't have to be competition and they're more than likely to probably answer a few questions if, you know, you ask the right way. And I think that's what's fantastic about the positive side of social media, you know, and it's, it's, it's cool. And if you have to be out, you have the audacity to ask. And I think that's like when you talk about like this, this little bit of fearlessness, a little bit of risk-taking is the audacity to, to ask. And funny enough, I find a lot of times they'll say yes.

Yeah, yeah. You know, I, I give a workshop on confidence building, and that's one of my main things that I talk about is just, you know, if you're thinking about doing something, try to identify someone who is ahead of you and, and ask for support. And perfect, you said it perfectly, like, it doesn't have to be competition. In fact, it's inspirational. And, you know, what's the worst thing that happens? You send someone an olive branch and they don't take it. Like, all right, so you put yourself out there momentarily. Like, this is not— this is not a core memory unlocked, right? It's something fleeting. You'll move through it. Um, I have a podcast myself called Becoming Unstoppable, and I was talking— I had a coach at the beginning, and I was saying I did all the episodes myself. I really wanted guests. I was not a great, like, monologue podcaster. And he was like, what's stopping you from having guests? And I was like, I don't I don't want to ask people though. And he was like, well, but just try. And I tiered it kind of like I remember what I did for college where it was like, here are the people that I would love to talk to. Here are some reach people that will— Oprah is not coming on my podcast, right? But at least for the people that I thought were accessible and the middle group, I had 100% success rate, right? And at the time, I had such limiting thoughts before I started that, thinking like, but I'm going to come up with this annoying— they're going to ask me, who the hell are you, right? Like, why would they want to come on my show? And it's like, well, you know, if they don't, they don't have time, they don't want to, they can say no. But no one did, right? So it's like I shut that door before I gave it an opportunity. And when I actually opened it and walked through, I was pleasantly surprised at, you know, it did work out totally.

How amazing is that? Because I remember the first time I did that, it was for Howard Behar, who was the former international president of Starbucks.

And he has a great book called It's Not About the Coffee.

And that was basically the Starbucks manual. And then he evolved it into leadership, and he's huge in the conscious capitalism community. And I remember it popping up as a book suggested to me based on stuff that I'm reading. And stuff I was reading was based on stuff from a business coaching program I took, where there was people who've become my mentors and became friends from there. So obviously, when I was getting their books, these were the suggested. So I reached out to him, and I said, hey, I just heard so-and-so speak. I know you've spoken with that person. In the past. I'm a huge fan of these values that you've instilled in. If in the next year you have 30 minutes to be a guest on my podcast, I would be beyond honored. 15 minutes later, I heard back from his assistant saying he said yes.

Oh my God.

Right. How crazy is that? And I was like, and this is like still the, you know, this was early, early, early on. I think this was like, like before episode 20 for sure on my podcast. So I was kind of riding the wave of the people I knew that were successful entrepreneurs and people I already knew, like you said, in that circle that were, you know, already ready, willing, and able. And that was probably one of the first go-after people. Subsequently, it was Ryan Serhant from Bravo's Million Dollar Listing New York, and, uh, Joe DeSena, the founder of Spartan Games, who I met being brought in to be a podcaster at a business conference, thinking that I was supposed to be interviewing them because that's what I was taught. It was really just some of the other guests I was interviewing, so I just I like ballsily went up to them and like, someone screwed up our schedule. You were supposed to be on mine. And Ryan was so funny. He was during his speech, he tells, he says he takes his team to improv classes as team building leadership. He's like, I don't know, you know, therapy is good. And you know, I can bring in a therapist, but we go to improv classes. So I'm like, I use that. I'm like, that's my in. So I went up to him and I said, hey, I completely completely love what you said about not sending people to therapy on your team and taking them to improv. But I'm a therapist. So because, because you insulted me, even though I loved everything you just said, and I completely agree with you, you should be on my show. And that was it. Right. And it was like, I never would say that to anybody back in the day. But it took years of figuring it out. And those are pretty big people. Right. So maybe Oprah is not out of the mouth of the universe ears.

Yeah.

So, but that's part of, I think, the developmental stages where people have this idea of maybe the therapists— how do I say this? I get vulnerable with my clients. So I'm like, you know, I'm, you know, that whole self-disclosure, what do you share, what do you not share thing. And over the last couple of weeks, I've had a few losses and some other things going on. And I'm sharing it with them. Like, listen, I'm dealing with the same crap. I'm not here to be on a pedestal. I'm not here to be— here to be in it with you. Right. And I think that's the vulnerability and the rareness that you find in a good therapist, which I know that you're projecting to your community, is very rare versus the clinical. Yes, I can help you with anxiety. Yes, I can. Let's get real. So talk to me a little bit about that. What do you— what's your take on like, just getting into the nitty-gritty, the dirt, and like being like, yeah, so I went through that when I was in 5th grade or 15 years old. And let me just give you an insight of where I've been so it can help you.

Yeah, you know, I was actually just having this conversation, but yesterday, you know, I have found over the years I have my own therapist and I gravitate towards the ones that have been open and willing to share with me. And so I modeled that. So I actually am a big fan of self-disclosure in therapy. And if I'm ever sharing something with a client, you know, because I got to check myself, make sure I'm just, just like, you know, shooting the crap, having a conversation. But I'll always like say something and then I'll say, the reason I'm telling you this is, right? And it's like, you know, maybe because I understand what it's like to feel this way or I've had an experience. Because I do think, you know, so much of what we go through, we feel really alone, right? And that, that isolation is really terrible for our mental health. And just knowing that like we have some shared experiences that other people are navigating things too. You know, I had a client, one of my favorite clients of all time. We terminated, you know, because I moved. And she wrote me this long email about how I was the most stable, happy, got it all together human. And all I wrote back was like, girl, trust me, of course that's not true, right? And it actually was like a moment where maybe I didn't self-disclose enough, right? And so, you know, yes, I have training. Yes, I have modalities under my belt. I understand a lot about brain science. But, you know, I think it is an important part of just humanizing our experience. And, you know, unfortunately, I had a very similar experience. I had several back-to-back losses and I shared that with my clients. Right. I thought about the idea of just saying like, hey, I'm taking a leave of absence or I won't be around. But I even wrote to some of them, you know, like, hey, I'm going to take 2 weeks off, which is really out of character for me. You know, because I've had some, some back-to-back loss, I'm working through my own grief, and I really don't know that I'd be able to, like, hold space for you appropriately. And that's obviously important to me, you know, because, because it's important, right? We're all figuring it out. It doesn't matter how many degrees you got.

And what I found, just to piggyback on what you're saying, is that as my career evolved, the clients that I now have love that. For us, right? And as opposed to certain client populations that would lose their crap if we did our self-care because it contradicts or inhibits their own self-care. But if they have that level of awareness, if they have that insight of like, you know, this is really good, I'm really glad— like, no different than now during the pandemic. I left pretty much every insurance panel except for TRICARE Military as well, started getting licensed and multiple states, including New Jersey. So, you know, it's now I only work Monday to Thursday. So when a client's like, oh, do you work, you know, nights or weekends? I'm like, I could, but you're going to be charged double my hourly rate, and you're going to get the C version of Jason, not the A version of Jason. So you can pay more and you can get a lesser version of me, or you can find a time in your schedule that fits, and/or I can refer you out. So to have that audacity, to have that growth in that mindset of One, I can't take care of everybody because that's not my job, right, as a therapist. But I can't, you know, solve the problem for everybody. And there's billions of other great therapists out there. And two, just being able to say, like, I can't be on my A-game all week, and that's what you're expecting me at a nice price point, right? If you really want me to do that, it's going to cost you double.

Yeah. And I love the word— I love that you use the word audacity as an empowering term, right? Because sometimes we're like, they have the audacity. It's like, no, I have the audacity to actually assert like to lean again into my self-trust and just understand like, where do my boundaries lie? Where I won't be good for you, right? If I'm spent. I didn't come off insurance panels until about a year ago. And when I did, you know, it was a transition for all my clients and a huge percentage of them, almost all of them but one, took it really well, whether they decided to now pay my private pay rate or refer out. But I had one that took it really negatively and, you know, was very, very angry. And I— my response to it was like, you know, we've been working together for a long time and my message to you has been to really make decisions based on your needs, right? If I stayed on insurance for your benefit solely and it came at a cost to my own self-care, it came at a cost to my own boundaries, my own financial security, all the things that, you know, are are under the umbrella of taking insurance versus not, I'd be doing you a terrible disservice and even just modeling, right?

Like, and can you imagine the resentment that you would have if you decided for that client to stay on the insurance and then we're working with them and holding resentment against them for like that debt, right?

Yeah, right. You know, this relationship is super important. At the same time, we're not making life decisions based on it. Jason, you know, if you got a great job opportunity in Florida and couldn't see me, would you be like, no, I got to stay with Allison, right? Like, you do have the awareness that, you know, there— you have to look at this. We find a way to put this relationship into our life, but we don't pivot our entire life on this relationship. And there's going to be, you know, another fantastic therapist, hopefully, you know, out there for you that meets your needs. But I no longer check all the boxes, right?

Or developmentally, it might be time to evolve into a different therapist with a different specialty. It's one of the things I find so interesting on my intake forms. I have have you previously seen therapists? Right? When and what for? And then I said, and what was the benefit to you from it? Right? Some frame of that type of question. And 9 out of 10 times, people have seen a previous therapist, and they, and they love them.

Yeah, right.

Then why are you coming to me now? So it's like, what I want— that question is like, I always— I haven't gotten into it with a lot of clients, but a lot of times, like, oh, they were very nice.

Yeah.

But it doesn't mean they were clinically useful. So I think that like, it's such an interesting thing. So people who are listening to this, right, you might like, you might have a really, really nice therapist, and then going every week and just dumping and just like, alright, and time's up. And it's just a rehash of your week. And there's no strategy, there's no patterns, there's no looking at, you know, belief systems and expectations and assumptions. Yeah, that's more of the therapy than just sitting and debriefing. And, you know, you can take a person out, a friend out for a cup of coffee and do that. Yeah, that's not therapy, right? So it's interesting to see how many people said, oh, they were really nice, I really like them, versus they challenged me, provoked me, pushed my buttons and made me think differently.

Yes. Yeah, I am currently pregnant. I'm 30 weeks pregnant, so I go on maternity leave soon. And so I've been having, you know, the conversations with my clients about, well, what do we do now? Right? Are you waiting? Are you, you know, till I'm back? Are you referring out for a few months or like you know, finding a new therapist. And I have one client where, you know, I looked her right in the face and I said, listen, we have a great rapport, right? I really like you. And I'm going to take a guess that you really like me. But we've been working together for long enough where I feel like I have exhausted every knowledgeable thing I could possibly say to you. Like, you heard every speech, you've heard every analogy, right? Like, I, I'm not sure where to take it from here. And so, you know, again, I empower you to make the decision. If you want to come back to me in 3 months, see you then. However, you know, I would actually highly encourage you to maybe seek a different strategy, right? Because someone with a different approach, even just a different personality, is going to potentially tackle the same stories, the same situations that's going on with you from a different point of view. And I, I'm noticing that like my resources to challenge you are actually getting depleted. And, you know, she, she was sad about it at first, and then I was like, dude, we have, we have a few months to think about this. This isn't like the curve. Um, but she came back and was like, you know what, I think I do need a different approach. And I think, I think that's an important thing to say about therapy too. It's like, you can really like your therapist, right? You can have great rapport, you can have— feel really safe in— but you should be challenged. And if you're not, a good therapist can handle that, right? Like, coming to a therapist and saying like Hey, I think I need to go a different direction. And maybe that means being referred out. Maybe it just means, hey, I need you to try to change your game a little bit. Like, we can tolerate that.

Exactly. One of my favorite questions that I tell my clients early on is if you feel like I'm barking up the wrong tree, I'm not getting it, or you're like, where does he keep coming up with these out of left field ideas and it just doesn't connect? I need you to tell me and call me out on that because we know those stories of clients that just disappear. And don't reschedule or like, oh, I'll, you know, I'll think about reschedule. But, you know, they're just so vague. And I really do put it on the clients to take that new ownership that they might have had that pattern in the past and be like, we went through that whole session, you got literally nothing out of it. And I threw this curveball idea in and it's just like you swung at it and it's like, I don't get it. Then tell me, right? I need you to be that fully engaged. And people are like, oh, My therapist never told me that. And I'm like, part of the challenge, right? So, so therefore, but if I keep doing that consistently, then it's on me, not on you. And then we got to refer you out, right? So I really do love that sense of empowering the client to push back in a way to, to, to meet us at the moment and to be there. And I think that's such a beautiful thing, especially when you have a, you know, there's an end time, right, that you're taking this break. So it's kind of cool that this is like, everybody knows, it's obvious, it's looming. Right, versus, versus all these things. So it's, it's very special. Is, you know, so I know you have the therapy side, you have the coaching side, you have the podcast side. What's, you know, when someone's working with you session-wise, is the therapy and the coaching kind of set up? Is it more courses? Like, how, what does it look like when they're, when they're working with you between the two different sides?

Yeah, you know, so I play with it a little bit. When I'm back from maternity leave, I'm actually going to be doing my group coaching program, which I've never done before. Um, but right now I'm one-to-one, right? So, you know, the— for me, therapy is longer term, right? So, um, you know, it's a lot of going back into our histories. Coaching, I either do it for 2 months or 4 months, right? So it's like sort of in its own, you know, capsule, right? There's a container for it. We have more marked— like, we are going— it's a little more me-led than client-led. Right? So, um, I am in therapy typically the person that's very client-centered, so I want them to kind of bring in what they, they need. Where coaching, I mean, it feels more— there's more of like a learning and like we're gonna go through things. I, I do— I used to do worksheets and things like that in therapy. I have long abandoned that, um, but in coaching I do, right? So it's more— it feels more I don't know, more like a class than it maybe does.

It's workshopping in a way, right? Didactic. Yeah.

Yeah.

It's so cool because I have— there was really very— I tell my clients I don't give a lot of homework because I want them, right, to put just to put stuff into play in a different way than just like, okay, I want you to sit down. But there are 2 or 3 things that I consistently at the beginning, and I tell them to do it before we even start our sessions to see, one, are they capable of being as proactive as I want them to be in order to be my client? But usually second, second or third session, I'll start working with them between the first, second and third session. But one is using a lens of the Enneagram test, which is just the lens, right? A pair of glasses that I take on and take off. And I found it so accurate, especially when I'm dealing with people in businesses and navigating different personalities, but especially with my couples and seeing like right off the bat they can talk about whatever story they want to talk about that, well, he did this and she did this and that doesn't matter. How are you receiving it? How are you perceiving it? And how are you responding? By— through, through ways that you just autonomically know, right? Nervous system triggers. Um, how fun that is. And the other thing, the bigger thing, is having them work— and it's literally a worksheet— on core values, right? Because my whole thing is I can't really help you until I know what your core values are, because we might, we might work on something And it may not align once we just— right? So I sit with them and I give them, you know, this assignment and I walk them through it and come up with definitions and let's make it up for different categories of your life. And I found that like some people love it and some people like they schlep and it takes some time to like, you know, to get in there. Is there anything like that you feel is like for your, you know, for your clients that you feel like, okay, this is the one thing I need to know or this is the one thing I need you to put your head down on for the first few sessions.

Yeah, I do the same with the, the core values. And actually I borrowed that from a coach that I had who at the top of our working together did it to me and I thought, wow, this is like super valuable, right? So I do that. I do do that one as well. And then something that I often do with clients is what I call a thought inventory. And I actually found this in a worksheet book for children, but I have adapted it to adults. And basically it had them— I don't make my clients draw, but the kids would draw a picture of themselves, a self-portrait, draw all in. And then outside of themselves, they would write all of the thoughts that they would have consistently, right? So like, I need to be better at, you know, soccer. Jennifer doesn't like me, whatever. And the next step in the worksheet was to actually assign those thoughts a voice. Right? Like, but who's saying that? And I have translated that into adulthood because I do think so many of the thoughts that we have, right? Like, I, I'm very eclectic in my approach, but I do love like cognitive behavioral therapy where like our thoughts dictate our, our behaviors. And so I like to see where are these thoughts coming from, right? So recently, with permission, my client allowed me to share this story. She was talking about how you know, she feels very judged. And she went into a bar and she wanted a glass— she wanted a beer, but she ordered a glass of wine because she's like, beer is so masculine, right? And it's like, well, where did we get this? And she actually could inventory like quite a lot of thoughts throughout her life. She had 4 brothers and there was a lot of pressure on her to like not do the things that her brothers did, right? And so it's like, actually, it's my dad. My dad told me like, you shouldn't like the ATVs, you know, you should like the Barbie dolls. And I was like, you know, once we can identify that this voice is actually outside of yourself, right? This isn't actually a value.

It's not authentically yours.

It's not authentic. You were gifted this, right? And you renegotiated a lot of things you were gifted. Like I said to her, I was like, I'm sure you believed in Santa Claus at one point, right? And like, she used to tell me about, you know, her Christmases. And I'm like, do you still? It's like, no. It's like, well, at some point you realize you were gifted this thought Santa Claus is real. And you're like, that— no, that's not real. We can do that with other thoughts, right? It's like, you know, what does your femininity mean to you, right? Is it defined by the beverage in which your hand is, you know, which is in your hand? No, it's not for you. Is it defined to you by what car you drive? No, it's not by you. So we can reject that your dad taught you this and you don't want it anymore. And so I do that a lot. I like that little one.

I love it. As long as it's not a White Claw, then that's—

Then, then the judgment.

Then that's all. Yeah, that's too, that's too on the nose. But yeah, there's so many, so many different things, so many different— right. And it's, it's interesting, the people that I'm connecting with more— there was someone I was, I started doing, um, he happens— I'm Jewish— he happens to be someone I found on the Enneagram, like, you know, YouTube channels, whatever. He happens to be a minister in North Florida who left, uh, being a minister full-time to start his own coaching practice. He's got a doctorate in divinity, but he just does Enneagram stuff. And I noticed over and over again that he had guitars hanging up on the wall. And here I am with my guitar and my violin sitting right behind me. And I'm like, okay, not only do I like his personality, not only do I like that he's very ecumenical, and there's not like anything preachy. And he seems like he knows his stuff. And he just, he's got his guitar hanging up there. Right. So I feel like when we bring more of ourselves, we're not just the therapist on the mountain, and people are coming up to us, we're, you know, we're in the nitty-gritty. And we're humans, right? Just as, just as, just as figuring it out as everybody else is in our own unique ways. Just as, right, just as your art, I'm sure, probably helps connect that you have behind the wall, right? It's, it's no different than my Trey bobblehead. When I had a client sit down from Fish and he's right, he's like, ah, all my, 5 of my friends come to you and I wasn't sure. Then I saw the Trey bobblehead and I knew I was in the right place. I'm like, that's, that's it. That's what sold them on therapy with, right? So it's just as cool. So all right, so let's— where can people find you? How can they track you down? Yeah, give us the podcast name one more time, because good podcast is good for the soul.

Right? So my podcast is called Becoming Unstoppable, and it's found on all the places you find your pods— Apple, Spotify, all that.

So if you're listening to mine right now, that means you can find Allison's very easily. Yeah. Yeah.

And I live on the internet. My website is anotefromyourtherapist.com. And most of my handles are the same name. So, Anote from Your Therapist. Awesome. Yeah.

All right. Well, everybody, if you've been listening, like I always say, if there's anything, which I'm sure there was, that you found of value, please, please, please, you know, just send that, you know, check one, let us know that you got some value out of it. We're happy to hear from you. I love it when like one of my guests like 6 months later, like, 'Oh my gosh, one of your listeners like reached out to me.' And I'm like, 'Yeah, that's perfect. Like, I want you to know, like, right, this is why we're doing this. We want to know that there was something there.' But also, please follow Allison's podcast as well. I already went through it and looks like you had some really awesome guests. And, and then obviously check out her website if there's anything in her world that you think would be beneficial for you or someone you know and love and point them in the right direction. So yeah, as always, Alyssa, thank you for hanging out.

Thank you. Thank you so much.