“I’m a big believer that our thoughts create our reality, not our circumstances.”
A crisis is defined by Webster as a time of intense difficulty, trouble or danger.
When this episode goes live (in March 2020), many are experiencing a crisis with the Coronavirus. Millions are laid off, hundreds of thousands are sick and there doesn’t seem to be an end in sight to when this turmoil will end.
Although the circumstances of many of our lives have changed in the past few weeks to being worse off than we were before, that doesn’t mean we have to suffer.
Buddha said it best when he said, “Pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional.” I completely agree and I think you will too after you listen to this episode.
So, be sure to tune in as I teach you a revolutionary tool to help you diminish your suffering so you can instead conquer crisis in your life (be it the Coronavirus or something else).
IN THIS EPISODE, I SPECIFICALLY COVER:
- What I did first-hand to overcome and THRIVE out of crises in my life despite society defining it in a negative way
- A revolutionary tool to teach you how to conquer crisis in your own life
- What you can do TODAY to start to change the results in your life from a crisis
…and so much more
Listen to this life-changing episode via the link above.
RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:
→ Continue the conversation in my free online community
→ Get The 4-Day Accomplish Your Dreams Free Training
→ FREE “The Self-Coaching Model” printable
→ Brooke Castillo explaining “The Self-Coaching Model”
Full Transcript
This is the Become an Unstoppable Woman podcast with Lindsay Preston Episode 38,
Conquering Crisis.
[music]
Welcome to the Become an Unstoppable Woman podcast, the show for goal-getting, fearfacing women for kicking ass by creating change. I’m your host, Lindsay Preston. I’m a wife,
mom of two, and a multi-certified life coach to women all over the world. I’ve lived
through enough in life to know that easier doesn’t always equate to better. We can’t fear
the fire, we must learn to become it. On this show, I’ll teach you how to do just that. Join
me as I challenge you to become even more of the strong, resilient, and powerful woman
you were meant to be. Let’s do this.
[music]
Hi there, my friend. Welcome to the show or welcome back if you tune in often. I’m excited
to have you here. Today, we’re going to be talking about conquering crisis. Now, as I’m
recording this podcast live which is on a Sunday morning, in my pajamas, in my master
bedroom closet because right now, it’s like I have to record an episode right before it goes
live because so much is going on in our worlds.
We are dealing with the Coronavirus. While this episode is going to be focused in on that
crisis to show everybody what their brains are looking at and how that’s creating anxiety
and other pain and suffering that doesn’t need to be there because of the Coronavirus, this
is an episode anyone can listen to at any time based of any crisis they’re going through. I
even looked up the definition of crisis to give you an idea of well, am I going through a
crisis? I don’t know.
Webster defines a crisis as a time of intense difficulty, trouble, or danger. If you are going
through a time right now in your life be it Coronavirus or something else that is intensely
difficult and has trouble or danger, that is called a crisis. I know in my life, I’ve gone
through several of them. I will bring up some of those examples today in the episode to
show you a little bit of how to fit other crisis into this tool I’m going to teach you today
because this tool is a great one.
I’ve been waiting to share it with my audience and my clients for about a year now as I’ve
been studying it and implementing it in my own life and this is the perfect time to show
you this tool that can really help you change the game and your life so stay tuned. It’s
going to be a good one. I’m also going to have a free printable with this tool that you
won’t even have to put your email address in for. You’ll just go to this link and
immediately get the download so you can start using this in your life time and time again.
All right. As I said, we’re getting into the tool today but let’s talk about why conquering
crisis is so important.
As we’re going through this whole Coronavirus thing, I am finally at a place in my life
where I feel like I’ve really mastered my mindset. Now, I have my moments, of course.
We’re all on our own pathways of growth. I have been a life coach now since 2014. Oh my
gosh, I’m about to have six years of my business. I’ve been setting this work for about eight
years. I still feel like I’m pretty new but I’m becoming a master at it.
As I’m watching this whole Coronavirus thing going on, I’m seeing people who are running
around like their hair’s on fire. Then, I see people who are my clients either active or just
wrapped up working with me and they’re pretty calm. They have their moments of panic
especially if they think they’re going to lose their job and so I see them go on this little
roller coaster ride, but they’re able to reel it in and manage it either by coaching with me
or ask me questions or using the tools I’ve taught them.
Then, I see my older clients who I’ve wrapped up at least a year ago, if not longer and
they’re just cool as a cucumber like me and I think this is cool. This just further proves that
the work we’ve done together has really helped because some of them are in what
someone would consider ‘bad situation’ or they could be in ‘trouble’ either financially or
with their health or otherwise, but yet they’re really calm.
It just brings me back to when I went through one of the biggest crisis in my life which
was my divorce. If you don’t know that story, here it is in a quick nutshell. I was with
somebody for a few years. We had a daughter and we were considered common-law
married presenting ourselves as husband and wife even though we hadn’t officially gotten
married. It’s a thing here in Texas if you don’t know anything about it.
He started going on these ‘work trips’. The reality was actually, he was living a double life
with another woman. They were engaged. He would go across town, live in this high-rise
with her, and then come home with us every so often. I found all this out through a private
investigator. By the time my daughter was two, I was a stay at home mom but yet going
through a high conflict divorce with no job, no money, really high profile case.
I had two intense lawyers who were battling things because it all came out to the surface
that he was a narcissist. It was very dramatic and a lot.
That was the biggest crisis I’ve faced in my life thus far. What was so interesting about that
time is was I anxious? Absolutely. Was I mad and sad? Absolutely. As I would go and
present myself in the world during that time, be it even at my daughter’s school because
she was in a little Mother’s Day Out program at the time or to my lawyers or to my support
group at a local church about divorce, they would all put me in this box of feel sorry for
her, she’s going through something really bad, we pity her, she’s a victim.
Whereas I really appreciated that love and support and them trying to meet me where they
thought I was at, I actually thought, I don’t really belong in that box. Yes, this bad and it
makes me mad and sad but I really think this is going to be the best thing that’s ever
happened to me. I believe that into the core of my bones that I was going to make this
situation just something I would look back on and say, “Oh my gosh, I’m so glad that
happened to me.”
That’s what happened is I created that because I had that thought, whereas so many
people put me in the box of, “This is bad, she’s going to suffer blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,”
right. I found it really interesting even before I had studied all this thought work and done
things like coaching and obviously became a coach of how interesting is it that someone’s
trying to put me in a certain box but yet, I don’t feel that way.
I even look back at my childhood and there were times when my parents or other people
would try and put me in a box of “You don’t make high of age, you’re never going to do
blah, blah, blah.” I grew up in an environment which was what someone would consider
mentally and emotionally abusive even. When those thoughts would come to me or they
would be said to me, I would just think, “I don’t have to believe that. I don’t think that has
to be true about me.”
It’s so funny because different coaches and even therapists along the way have said,
“Lindsay, how have you turned out as well as you have because given your upbringing, you
shouldn’t be this way. You should have more to clean up.” I would say, “I just didn’t believe
that everything that was told to me was true.” It just reminds me again of the power of our
thoughts and how our thoughts create our worlds. I see this with clients all the time. As we
work together we say if the goal is to work on their confidence and we go in and we start
to dig into some past experiences for them and what thoughts they came out of that with
and then we start to heal those things and change those things. All of a sudden, they have
their goals, they have that confidence they want, they have the love they want, they have
the career they want.
It’s simply we just had to go in and clean up the thoughts and heal some of the
experiences that created those thoughts for the game to change. All that to say, I’m a big
believer in thought work. I’m a big believer that our thoughts create our reality. This tool
that I’m going to teach you today, it’s called the self-coaching model. It’s by Brooke
Castillo from The Life Coach School. I’m a big fan of Brookes within the past year or so.
She’s been around for a few years now but I just got into her work this past year as I said.
I’m not trained with her. I’m not a certified life coach through her school. Her school came
along just right when I was getting trained. I didn’t know about her and otherwise, I
probably would have gone and gotten trained with her actually. I’m not trained with her
but I’m a big fan of this tool. She puts this tool out there to everyone to use and has free
trainings for other coaches to use it. She allows other people to use it but I do want to give
her credit because that is the tool I’m going to be teaching you today is from her.
As I said, it’s called the self-coaching model. This tool or this model teaches you how our
circumstances really don’t create our reality. We think because of things like the
Coronavirus or because we lost our job or because we’re going through a divorce or
because we’re sick with something that that creates our life. It’s just not true.
I know for a lot of you, you may be wanting to turn off this podcast or screaming in the
podcast, wanting to leave me a bad review because of this because it really does. It shakes
up what we’ve been taught. We think that our external world determines internally how
we feel, and it does not have to be that way. We always have the choice of believing
something different. That’s why I gave you the examples of like through my divorce. All
the messaging I was getting was feel bad for her, feel bad for her, or when I was growing
up of certain things about myself that I just kept thinking, “That’s not true. It’s not true
about me. Here’s what I’m going to believe instead.”
Now, consciously I didn’t know this whole process, but that’s what I was doing and
because of that, I created different results. For you with say right now, the Coronavirus,
that’s a circumstance. We’re all going through it. You’ve probably had so many new things
on your plate, so many unexpected changes, unexpected changes that even could be
causing a lot of turmoil in your life. You may not have as much income, you may be having
to manage children at home, you may be having to take extra precautions because you’re
somebody who’s considered high risk, can’t go out like you want to or things of that sort.
You’re in a space where your circumstances have changed and so because of that, you may
be feeling a little bit different. I want to show you that it’s really not the circumstance
that’s creating how you feel, it’s your thoughts. What I want you to do is pull out a piece of
paper and I know you may be driving or such right now so you can’t. Again, I’ll give you a
free printable of this, if you just want to listen in.
I want you to have a piece of paper and on the left-hand side of it, I want you to write
these letters down the page like you’re numbering a piece of paper. The first line you’re
going to write a C and that’s going to stand for circumstance. The line below that you’re
going to write a T and that stands for thoughts. The line below that you’re going to write
an F that stands for feelings. The line below that you’re going to write an A, which stands
for action. Then on the final line, you’re going to write an R and that stands for results.
Again, you can get a free printable of this here in a bit, but your paper should have on the
left-hand side, a C, then a T, then an F, then an A, then an R.
What we’re going to do is we’re going to start playing with some different circumstances
and some different thoughts and feelings and actions and results because of that. Let’s all
put a circumstance at the top that says the Coronavirus. You can put something more
specific there if that feels right to you. It could be the circumstance is my kids are at home,
or I’ve lost my job, or I can’t go out like I want to. You’ve got your circumstance at the top,
but if you’re not doing the Coronavirus or anything around that, it could be I’m going
through a divorce or I’ve been diagnosed with blah, blah.
You’ve got that circumstance. Then underneath that, write one sentence in your mind
about that circumstance. That’s your thought. I’m going to say it again. One sentence in
your mind about your circumstance. If we’re just writing the Coronavirus as the
circumstance, the thought could be, “This is scary.” If your kids are at home and they’re
driving you crazy, or you have to do virtual schooling, you could write, “This is a lot. I can’t
handle this.”
If you’re diagnosed with something again, it could be, “This is scary, or I’m going to die.” If
you’ve lost your job or your partner’s lost your job, this could be, “We’re going to be broke.”
Again, it could be, “This is scary.” Many things could be, this is scary, but whatever that one
sentence that in your mind describes that circumstance that’s the thought. Then after that,
in the feelings line, I want you to write one word that describes your emotion about that
thought. It could be if the circumstance is Coronavirus, the thought is this a scary, the
feeling could be fear or if the circumstance is my kids are at home and the thought is, this
is a lot, the feeling could be overwhelmed.
If you’re diagnosed with something, it could be, I’m going to die. The feeling is fear. You
just want that one word to describe the thought for your feeling. Then after that, in the
action line, I want you to put what you do because of the way you’re feeling. For some
people, you may not have the action yet because it’s just fresh off the press even and you
don’t really know an action yet. For a lot of us, we’ve been simmering with this
Coronavirus stuff and all that for a while and you may be too with whatever crisis you’re
going through and so there’s an action that’s created.
For example, if we have a circumstance of Coronavirus, the thought is, this is scary, the
feeling is fear, the action could be, “I’m staying at home in anxiety consuming the news all
day.” That’s what you’re doing right now. You want to put in that action line. Again, what
are you doing right now because of that circumstance? If your circumstance is I’ve just lost
my job, the thought is I’m going to be broke, the feeling is fear, what’s your action of I’m
laying in bed all day. I don’t know. Again, what are you doing right now because of that
thought?
Then, because of whatever you’re doing right now, that’s going to create your results. You
may not be at the results phase yet, per se, but let’s just go back to the example of we
have the circumstance of Coronavirus, the thought is this is scary, the feeling is fear, the
action is I’m staying at home in anxiety consuming the news, the results right now maybe
I’m having weeks of high anxiety with little productivity and enjoyment. That’s your result
thus far. I want you to really think about what result you’re creating thus far.
Now I want to, can give you another example. If I were coaching somebody on this and we
went through and we created this self-coaching model and essence of the circumstance
and feeling and thought of everything I just gave you, I would say, “Okay, now let’s go back
in and let’s keep the circumstance the same.” That’s the Coronavirus, but what thought is it
that you want to have? Instead of this is scary, the person may then say, “Well, I want the
thought of this is scary, but I’m okay right now.”
I’d say, “Okay, well, based off that thought, then how are you feeling off of that?” They
would say, “Well, I’m actually feeling pretty neutral. I’m not in fear, but I’m not in these
high level of emotions of peace and calm and all that, but I feel calmer. I feel neutral.” I’d
say. “Okay, cool.” What actions do you think you’re going to take based off that thought
that it’s scary, but you’re okay right now.
They would say, “Well, I would probably still stay at home, but I would learn to start to
enjoy it. Instead of sitting at home consuming the news and anxiety, I would spend time
with the loved ones I’m in confinement with or I would reach out to my friends for a Zoom
call or FaceTime, or I would learn that language, or I would do personal development, or
would deep clean my home or start that side hustle or whatever.”
That starts to change the game. Then the results, probably from that after a few weeks of
living that way with that primary thought is they have weeks of calm with moderate
productivity. They’re going to leave this whole quarantine and this whole Coronavirus
experience and be like, “Okay, it was sort of bad, but it wasn’t as bad as I thought it was
going to be.” Now if I was coaching somebody and they said, “Well, okay, let’s do the same
circumstance of Coronavirus.” Instead of the thought of this is scary or this is scary but I’m
okay, they want to flip to this is an opportunity to grow. I trust in something bigger. This is
actually a thought that I kind of flipped recently.
I’m going to give you a personal example. I have the circumstance of this is going to be
overwhelming and I have so much on my plate and I realized, “Whoa, wait a second. I don’t
have to believe that this is going to be overwhelming. I can change that thought.” I
changed it to this specific thought right here that I gave you, which is, again, this is an
opportunity to grow. I trust in something bigger.
Because of that, all of a sudden I felt this expansion and I realized, “Okay, what am I
feeling right now?” I would put in my F line, “I’m feeling a lot of peace. I feeling actually a
lot of happiness too. I’m feeling excitement that I’m going to have this time and I’m going
to be able to grow and that if something happens, I trust in the greater good, I trust in the
universe.” Then the action that I’ve taken this past week or so because I’ve changed that
thought is I go out when needed. I go get my groceries or whatever.
I’m actually highly enjoying this time. I’m seeing that with my clients too. They’re really
enjoying this time. If they’re not, we’re going through it in essence, going through the selfcoaching model. They don’t know it yet, that’s what we’re doing, but then they’re changing
their thought. Then all of a sudden we’re creating a plan of new actions they’re creating.
Then they leave the call and they’re like, “Great, Lindsay, I feel so much better. Thank you
so much. Now I know where to go and I change my thoughts and my feelings and blah,
blah, blah.”
This can be for you too. I’m going to give you one more example that I’m going to walk
you through with this. Let’s say you’re going through a divorce. The circumstance is a high
conflict divorce with a narcissist. That was like my situation. Well, the thought that people
were trying to put on me at the time was, this is scary and bad, but my thought was, “This
is an opportunity to make this the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”
If I had stayed with the thought of what other people tried to tell me, which is this is scary
and bad, I probably would have felt a lot of fear, but instead, because I said or I thought
this is an opportunity for me to grow it was– I felt empowerment. I felt strong. I felt even
a little excited. Then because of that, I took actions like hiring a coach and making really
smart choices, and not giving into guys that I was dating, who I thought weren’t the right
fit. I stayed with the thing. I was like, “I’m going to date the right guy. I’m going to get the
right guy out of this.”
I’m not going to be broken or seen as less sound because I’m a divorced person. I’m going
to rock it and that’s what I got out of that. That was my result out of that versus I don’t
know what my action would have taken of this is bad and horrible. Who knows where I’d
be. I hope you’re seeing the power in this. I’m already seeing because I’m doing my Life
Luver’s 21-day challenge for free right now. That’s typically $97. I’m seeing some new
people come in and some of those people are just very much in a victim mentality of, “Oh,
well, I’ve lost my job or I can’t afford these prices that have gone up or I’m not reaching
out for help for you because I’m an introvert,” was one thing I got.
I’m like, “I’m an introvert too,” but it’s that victim mentality, right of I’m a victim in this.
Granted, yes, bad stuff happens to a lot of us. The reason why we want to go on that victim
mentality is typically that’s the mindset that’s been passed down to us and also too we
have trauma in there. We’ve had moments from our past that happened really hard, that
made us feel unsafe as children because our childhood brain is so emotional, we’ve built in
these wires and we’ve wanted to protect ourselves. We’ve learned how to deal with things
in typically inappropriate ways because of that highly emotional brain.
We can go in and we can heal those things. We can change those things. This selfcoaching model is a really great, straightforward way for you to start to see just what’s
going on in your brain to allow you to see, “Hey, I can actually change the game here. I can
actually change my circumstances just by changing my thoughts, which are going to
change my feelings and then thus change my actions, which creates different results.” It’s
very powerful stuff, my friends.
It’s sad for me, actually, this week in my community, I had to ask somebody to politely
leave because she just kept coming in there with a lot of diagnoses for mental health
things. Every time I would try and gently coach her in the community, which I’m doing for
free, by the way, and she just wouldn’t get out of believing what she believed, which was
an essence that she was a victim with these disorders. I said, “Listen, we’re just in two
different places. I love to take you from where you are to this other place, but I completely
understand if that’s not where you want to go. Here’s my boundary with it. If you want to
leave, go ahead.”
She chose to leave and that’s okay. If this is where you are and you’re just really wanting
to hold onto circumstances and really wanting to stay in that victim mentality of my
circumstances, or what’s created my life, then, I really want to encourage you to think
differently. If you’re just not at a place where you can do that yet, then, really just stay with
it. I just don’t think this podcast will be for you long-term, to be honest with you but I
really just want you to really think about it because this work is very healing. It can really
change your life. I really hope that there’s just a part of you in there that can experience
that. Okay.
Again, I’m doing all of this for free. I know there may be a part of your brain that’s like, “Oh,
well you just want to sell me stuff or you just want to do blah, blah.” Of course, I’m in
business. I want you to buy something from me, but that’s not my ultimate end game here.
I’m wanting to help you and that’s why I’m giving you these free resources like this
podcast for you to do this tool. All right. Hopefully, this coaching model is starting to make
sense to you. If you want my free printable for this, just go to lindsay, L-I-N-D-S-A-Y,
epreston.com/themodel. Lindsay, L-I-N-D-S-A-Y, epreston.com/themodel to get this free
printable. You don’t have to enter your email. You just get it downloaded. You can print it
or use it on your computer.
The other thing I mentioned is that I have my Life Luvers free 21-day challenge right now
that’s only lasting until I think April 15th or 16th before it goes back up to $97. Once you
sign up for it, you get it free for 30 days. That’s more than enough time to go through the
21 days of content. It takes about 30 minutes a day to learn all those tools. All those tools
are backed by neuroscience to help you create not just a life that feels good right now in a
crisis, be it coronavirus or something else, but any time in your life. Those are lifelong
tools. If you want to sign up for that you should go to Lindsay, L-I-N-D-S-A-Y,
epreston.com/freelifeluvers, and Life Luvers is spelled L-U-V-E-R-S.
I’ll also have links in the show notes for both of these. The last thing I want to mention,
I’ve mentioned it in this podcast here and there is I have a free community. In that
community right now, we have a daily post where you can post your wins, something
you’re grateful for, and something you’re struggling with though I can coach you. That post
has been really helpful to a lot of people to really focus in on something positive every
day.
In that group, I’m also just putting out there, all of these free printables and other free
things I’m doing. It’s really easy to click on it. You can also network in that group. There
are some amazing women on that group who would love to help you out no matter where
you are in your life if doing well if you’re needing help job-wise or otherwise. I’m also in
there every single day, coaching you on whenever you need. It’s just a really great support
system.
We’re not on social media, we’re on our own app on Mighty Networks and so you don’t
have to be anywhere near social to join. In order to join, all you do is go to lindsay, L-I-ND-S-A-Y, epreston.com/community and you’ll get a link to join in right away. I’d love to see
you again link in the show notes. All right. Hopefully, this tool helped you today. I’ll also
put in the show notes some videos of Brooke teaching the model on YouTube. She’s
teaching toward coaches in that, but you are easily a coach in your own life, right? You’re
coaching yourself. That’s why it’s called the self-coaching model is you’re learning how to
coach yourself through this tool.
It’s a very awesome tool. I’m so glad that Brooke has put it out there for all of us to use.
Thank you, thank you, Brooke. Thank you for listening and exploring this new tool with me
and starting to see that your circumstances really don’t create your reality and don’t cause
your pain and suffering. It’s your thoughts that do it all. Thanks for tuning in yet again. I
hope to see you next time and goodbye.
[music]
Hey there, Miss Unstoppable. Thanks so much for tuning into this episode. If you enjoyed
it, share it with a friend. Send them a picture of this episode via text, via email, share it on
social media, I’m sure they would be so appreciative to know these strategies and tips on
how to accomplish your dreams. If you are ready to guarantee you’re going to accomplish
your goals and dreams, then it’s time to start coaching with me.
In my nine-month simple success coaching system, I am going to walk you every single
step of the way to ensure that you get the goals and dreams that you want. The first step is
to apply for a free 60-minute consult call. Just go to LindsayEpreston.com/apply to get
started. As always, my friend, remember, you’re only as unstoppable as you believe you can
be, so believe in yourself. You got this.
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