fbpx

Blog

CECILIA’S COACHING STORY

Hear firsthand from one of my clients, Cecilia as she shares how coaching with me helped her diminish her anxiety from a level 10 to being nearly non-existent, helped her leave a toxic relationship and allowed her to thrive more in her career.

CECILIA’S COACHING STORY

Jul 6, 2020 | Uncategorized | 0 comments

“It takes nine months for new life to begin. It took me nine months to be born, but it also took me nine months to be born again because I’m a completely different person than I was. I never thought with coaching that I could do that. I never imagined myself to be at this place. I never even dared to dream that far.” – Cecilia

Hear firsthand from one of my clients, Cecilia as she shares how coaching with me helped her diminish her anxiety from a level 10 to being nearly non-existent, helped her leave a toxic relationship and allowed her to thrive more in her career. 

Cecilia describes in this interview exactly how coaching helped her get out of feeling like she was at “rock bottom” by now in a place where she’s on the pathway to thrive by learning the tools for success in my coaching programs in just 9 short months.

SPECIFICALLY, LISTEN TO HEAR CECILIA DESCRIBE:

  • What life was like before she started coaching with me
  • How coaching helped her leave a toxic dating relationship
  • How coaching helped her love and thrive in her job
  • How she was able to make back her coaching investment with bonuses at work
  • What tools she learned from me that have changed her life the most
  • The setbacks she had during the coaching process

…and so much more! 

Listen to this powerful interview via the link at the top of this page.

RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

Apply to coach with me

Continue the conversation in my free online community

Get The 4-Day Accomplish Your Dreams Free Training 

Full Transcript

This is the Become an Unstoppable Woman podcast with Lindsay Preston Episode 52,
Cecilia’s Coaching Story.

[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 Miss Unstoppable. Thank you for tuning in to another episode of this show. This
one is a treat. I always love it when I have clients come on and tell from their mouths their
coaching story of where they started and where they ended up in just a few months of us
working together. In today’s story of “Cecilia”, whose names I’m putting in quotes. We’ve
actually changed her name for privacy because she has a job in which she wanted to talk
very openly about. I’m so glad that she did that. She doesn’t want to share her name for
obvious reasons.

Today she’s coming on and she’s talking about what life looked like when we started
coaching together. She was an anxious person. She described her anxiety at a level 10
every single day. She said that she was just at rock bottom when she came. To be honest, I
thought she may be more of a therapy client but she came in and she was over it. She was
just so over the mind drama in her head. She actually came in and did my Life Luvers
course. First without even doing a consult with me and just showed up 100% and gave it
her all, was just getting results like crazy and I thought, “I got to get this girl on the phone.
Who is this woman? She’s awesome.”

She had already decided even before we got on the consult. She’s like, “I know I’m going
all in. I’m doing this. I’m so over everything. I’ve gotten more results from you in just a few
days than I’ve gotten in years in therapy.” We just went from there. There were some
hardships in this journey, let me tell you. There were at least two times that I can think of
that she was not happy with me. I think she probably wanted to quit. We bring up one of
the times on the interview. The other time I had called her out on something and I had
said, “Hey, this behavior is what is sabotaging you and blah, blah, blah.” She came back and
she was not happy with me.

That’s why people hire me. It’s not necessarily to be their best friends but to show them
the things that are holding them back. I’m so glad that she stuck in and kept going even
though I made her a little bit mad because that’s the power of coaching is for someone to
call you out on yourself and to see your patterns of behavior that are keeping you stuck.
This interview is so much fun as she just talks about the before and after journey. Talks
about how coaching helped her with her job. She wanted to leave her job at the time of
coaching. You’ll have to listen to the interview to see what happened with that, if she
stayed or if she left.

She talks about a toxic relationship that she was in and how coaching helped her finally
leave that toxic relationship. Very powerful interview in store. I hope you love it. Here it is.
Cecilia, thank you so much for coming on the show and for sharing your coaching story
with everybody. Can you give us in a nutshell, what was life like when you and I met,
goodness, what? Last fall, fall 2019?

Cecilia: Yes. [chuckles] Thank you. I feel very honored to be here. Thank you for allowing
me on the show to share my story. I remember it was September of last year. If I can
describe how I was doing back then, I always tell people that I felt like I had hit rock
bottom. I was having panic attacks. I was very anxious. I was depressed. I remember crying
all the time. I always tell people or I would tell myself I felt like I was going crazy. I was
extremely unhappy. I really didn’t know who I was, what I wanted. I was in a toxic
relationship.

Then, at my work, I’m in the healthcare field, I’m a nurse, I felt like I wasn’t good enough. I
thought no one liked me and that I wasn’t the right fit for the job. I remember reaching out
to you around that time like, “Oh, what should I do?” Asking you for advice and you gave
me some great, great advice. I was just really unhappy and it was just a really dark, dark
time for me when I met you or when started coaching with you.

Lindsay: Yes, I remember. Granted you signed up and you did Life Luvers at the time and I
hadn’t even met you yet. You went against the grain. Normally, I meet somebody and then
we do Life Luvers. Now, even Life Luvers is not even a thing anymore. Then you were just
showing up and you were rocking it. I was like, “Oh my gosh, I got to get this girl on the
phone. I want to know more about her. I want to know about her goals and see if I could
help her more.” I remember getting on that call with you and you told me about your
anxiety and how it was at a level 10.

You just imagined bringing it down just a couple of notches. Our goal was a six at the
time. You were like, “Oh, I can’t even imagine what that would be like. My job, I thought
this was my dream job but I just don’t feel like I fit in. I think I want to leave.” Tell them
what happened next after we did Life Luvers and you said, “Okay, I definitely want to do
Unstoppable,” and so we started working through that. What happened next?

Cecilia: I remember I used to be one of those people that would change jobs all the time
because I thought the job was the problem. I always remember reaching out to you and I
asked you, “What do you think I should do?” Basically, you told me stay strong, keep going,
and that you were going to be there to support me. That’s when I decided to do
Unstoppable.

I think with Unstoppable, that program really, really changed my life. Just like I got to
know myself. It was almost like I got to know what I liked and what I was good at and why
I was basically the way that I was as an adult. I felt like I did a lot of healing work.
Coaching really changed my life. Prior to me even doing Life Luvers, I didn’t even know
what coaching was, to be honest. I’m glad that I took the opportunity to invest myself and
really for the first time in my life, put myself first.

Lindsay: Yes, because you were used to just giving, giving, giving, giving. You had been
going to a therapist, right?

Cecilia: Yes. I had been going to a therapist but I almost felt like I wanted the therapist to
tell me how do I fix this. What do I need to do to get into action? I wasn’t getting that from
the therapist. It was very inconsistent where I would see her like one month and then she
didn’t have any availabilities until like two months later. I never felt like there was any
progress there because there was a lack of consistency.

I just felt like I want someone to tell me or show me how I can improve and the steps that
I need to do to move forward in my life. I just felt like that was what was different with
coaching where you can see things that I wasn’t seeing. That’s where I felt like I grew so
much where I was like, “Oh.” I could see your perspective or someone else’s perspective,
things that I wasn’t seeing.

Lindsay: It’s so interesting, Cecilia because when you came to me, you were almost
somebody who would have qualified more for therapy. Like you said, you were depressed
and you had huge amounts of anxiety. I was really on the fence. I thought, “Okay, I don’t
know if I can really help this girl but she’s already getting great results on her own. Let’s
just dive in and see.” I think it just shows, again, the power of coaching and especially the
power of someone’s mind when they’re really fed up because I felt like you were really fed
up.

You and I had talked about this on one of our calls it was like, with therapy, the therapist
would go into the pool of sorrow with you and be like, “Oh, yes, it’s really hard. It’s this.”
You need some of that. You need sometimes to process and sometimes you need someone
to hold your hand. Then sometimes you need someone to hold your hand and say, “Let’s
get out of here. We’re not going to sit here and just be in a pity party, here are the tools to
get us out of here.” That’s one of the reasons why I wanted to bring you on the show
because I want to show people that even if maybe on paper you qualify to go to therapy, if
you have the willpower to change and you really apply what coaching with me teaches
you, you can change so much, so, so much.

Cecilia: Yes. I’m glad you brought that up because when I had stumbled upon you, I
actually wasn’t looking for coaching at the time. I didn’t know what it was, it was from
above almost that I found out about you. I actually felt like I don’t know if I’m confident
enough or secure in myself to really be a candidate or I don’t know if we would be a good
fit. I really liked you. I had listened to some of your podcasts. I was like, “Wow, she seems
like a really genuine person.” I was hoping that we would be a good fit.

I’m glad that you saw something in me and that you were able to work with me because at
one point, I was like, “I don’t know if I’m confident enough or I meet her criteria so we can
work together.” Just working with you completely changed my life. I’m just so grateful that
you did take me on at the time. Yes, I did feel like, “Maybe I just need to go to therapy but
let me try this coaching thing.” It completely transformed my life to the point where I did
leave therapy. I guess we can talk about it later but in terms of the anxiety, and I’m just a
better person, a healthier, happier person because of coaching.

Lindsay: Let’s talk about that. Let’s dig deeper into the before. What was life like when you
would wake up in the morning before coaching?

Cecilia: I couldn’t sleep. That was the thing where I feel like very unrested. The first thing I
would feel extreme anxiety and I wouldn’t even know why. I would just wake up and my
stomach would hurt and my heart would race. It was just almost like I was scared to face
the day. I had dread going into work. I remember telling you because I do have high
empathy, it was almost like I was feeling someone else’s whatever they were experiencing,
and there was like all this stress. Even when you told me or when we came to that goal of
reducing my anxiety, our goal was from a 10 to a 7 or a 6. In my head, my inner critic or
what you call the inner mean girl, I was like, “I don’t know if that’s possible for me.”

I had heard what your clients, everything they’ve been able to accomplish in their life, but I
wasn’t sure if that was possible for me because of the level of anxiety that I had that I
would cry from these panic attacks that I would have. I would shy away from challenges. I
was always scared that I’m going to do something wrong, or people weren’t going to like
me. Because I had a really hard time with setting healthy boundaries with people, I always
was a pleaser and I would do whatever they wanted me to do even though I was already
overwhelmed.

It was very difficult to go through the day, where the only days that I really enjoyed were
the weekends, and even on the weekend, life was so hard. Even on the weekends, I had a
really hard time relaxing, and I could never really be at peace with myself at that time. It
was just horrible. I thought of myself I can’t live 30 or 40 more years waking up this way. I
don’t know where I’m going to end up. I just can’t continue doing that to myself.

Lindsay: Even though you have this almost debilitating anxiety outside, you’re successful.
You’re about to finish your master’s degree, you had a leadership position at work. That’s
what people think sometimes it’s if somebody’s externally successful, then internally, they
must feel that way too. It’s not the same. You’re really wanting more than internal success?

Cecilia: Yes. You’re so right. If someone will look at me, they’ll be like, “Wow, she has
everything going for herself. She’s very successful.” For me, I always felt like maybe when I
get my doctorate or maybe when I do this next thing, I’m going to feel better about myself.
That wasn’t the case. You’re right, I wanted to be at peace within myself. There was a lot of
chaos inside of me. I was at a war almost with myself.

Lindsay: Yes, you couldn’t take in the success because you had broken so many barriers in
your family and all that, and you just needed your mindset to come up with it. We had to
do some healing. Yes, it was so good. What I love about you is, A, you did the work, you
trusted the process. When you didn’t feel like you could trust the process or something
goes wrong, you were always super honest with me. That helped us really focus in on
things when things weren’t going well of like, “Okay, let’s look at it this way.”

That just so worked in your favor. We had bumps, we had some major bumps, especially
with your relationship with your boyfriend. You guys would have a fight or something, and
then you would pull away from the process, and I would try and bring you back. There was
these times where it was stop-starts. Tell us about how that all ended up with the
relationship and where you went with that.

Cecilia: I’m so, so glad you brought this up because I do want to mention for me, I felt like
every time that I was trying to make some progress, or every time that I was just growing
in this program, or just with the coaching process, the person that I was with, he would
bring me down. It was almost like he held me back from where I needed to be. I also had
certain friendships or relationships that it was the same thing where I was growing or just
moving forward and it was almost like they held me back. It was a very toxic tumultuous
relationship. I’m no longer in that relationship. I no longer have those friendships around
me.

The interesting part is, when I was in the relationship and I have those friendships, I felt
very lonely and alone. Now that I’m not, I feel really happy, really at peace. I don’t know
what I would have done during the COVID-19 pandemic thing if I hadn’t had the coaching
before. Just where I was naturally all my life an anxious person, I could honestly say that
during the pandemic was probably the happiest times of my life, even though I do work in
the healthcare field and I am in the frontlines because I knew how to manage myself and I
had to manage my thoughts.

Lindsay teaches you so much. She teaches you all these tools that are tools that you can
use for any situation for the rest of your life. That’s why I say that coaching for me was like
a saving grace because it’s almost like it opened my eyes to things that I wasn’t even able
to see. Like how certain things held me back and were not good for my progress or just not
even good for my inner peace.

Lindsay: That’s why when everyone’s like, “Oh, Corona is giving me anxiety,” the rest of us
that have done coaching and such are like, “Corona doesn’t cause anxiety. It’s your
thoughts that cause anxiety. When you change your thoughts, you change everything.”
That’s what’s so interesting because again, you grew up in a childhood that was pretty
hard. Then you up-leveled externally but yet your brain didn’t know how to uplevel and so
it just kept self-sabotaging with relationships and friendships that were bringing you
down. We changed a lot in what? Nine months or so?

Cecilia: Yes. I always tell people really what it takes for a baby, nine months to grow for
new life to begin. I always feel it took me nine months to be born or my mom’s pregnancy
but it also took me nine months to be born again because I’m completely different person
than I was. I never thought with coaching that I could do that. I never imagined myself to
be at this place. I never even dared to dream that far.

Lindsay: You’re just getting started. We just wrapped nine months of coaching. It’s
incredible. So incredible. Tell us about life today.

Cecilia: Life today, I finished my master’s degree, which is really exciting. I wake up and I
do my journaling, which I love. I love writing. I have this inner peace. I’m so proud. I’m able
to be proud of myself and I’m able to talk to myself in a nice way, in a nice manner. I’m
able to have compassion for myself. I think for me what was one of the biggest things that
I learned is I was able to not only learn about myself and understand myself but also I
understand the world and I don’t take things personally. Before, I would take everything
personally. I was very emotionally reactive.

This is just an example, but if Lindsay didn’t respond to me in the way that I wanted or
gave me the answer that I, in my head, wanted, that in the past would make me, precoaching, so upset or if somebody wouldn’t a respond a text within a certain amount of
time, I would make it about me. Like “Oh, they don’t care about me or I must be a bad
friend to them.” I don’t let what’s going on in the outside world bother me anymore. This is
the happiest I’ve ever, ever been in my life. I was able to accomplish that happiness
without external things. We’re staying at home, I’m not going out and traveling or going
out to amusement parks, which were things that I really enjoyed in the past.

I’m by myself, I feel just very grateful to be alive and I’m able to appreciate the little things
in life. All I can really say is I don’t have anxiety. It’s insane that I would say that that
number went from a 10 to a 2 or 3. I never thought that was ever possible. I think that I
could have gone to years and years of therapy and I wouldn’t have been able to drop it
that quick. To me, that’s amazing that I dropped it that quick from a 10 to a 2 or 3. The
panic attacks are gone.

I know I didn’t mention this before but I had gastrointestinal issues, I had IBS. I remember
Lindsay saying “Oh, yes, some of my clients, they got rid of their IBS.” I am in the
healthcare field so I had a really hard time in the beginning, like “I don’t know if that’s
possible.” I don’t have those issues anymore. I had stomach pain beyond my belly button. I
thought it was the foods that I was eating, but it was really the anxiety and the stress that
I was putting myself under. To me, I still say it but I still can’t believe that even happened.

Lindsay: It’s crazy, again, just how much you changed. I have to ask because so many
people will come to me, Cecilia, and they’ll be like “Oh, I want to change and I want this so
bad.” Then they don’t. Then they maybe not sign up for coaching or they just passively
listen to, podcasts like this and they don’t say, “Today’s the day, I’m fed up. This is the
time”. What was it for you to say, “I’m done, let’s do this.”?

Cecilia: I think it was a few things. The first one was I felt like I’ve already tried the therapy
and I felt really alone and I just felt like I need to do something because felt like I had hit
rock bottom. I need to do something. For example, I was doing so much for other people.
Just so much even for the person I was with where I would work around his schedule and
do so much for my friends. I was last always on my list. If I even made it on the list of
things In terms of importance, priority, I never prioritized myself. I never put myself first. I
would say if you’re thinking about it, this is like an investment for life.

It’s not something that’s going to help you for the next year, the two years, but it’s going to
help you for the rest of your life. I think us women, it’s so easy for us to put our kids first or
our husbands or other people. I would say think about the person you want to become. You
have to live with yourself for the rest of your life. That’s the one thing that’s for sure. You
have to live with yourself for the rest of your life.

Just for me, I couldn’t keep waking up and having those negative self-talks and I couldn’t
live with that anxiety anymore. I thought of myself like, “I can’t do this for 30 more years, I
just can’t do it”. I would say just think about yourself and use this opportunity to put
yourself first because you matter and you’re important. Everyone is unique and everyone is
beautiful and you have so much to offer the world.

Lindsay: Yes, it’s so true. You mean the investment pack, right? You have gotten bonuses
and stuff at work?

Cecilia: Yes, because when I had signed up for both Unstoppable and when I was with you,
they were separate courses, Authentically Awesome. It was that time where I was like “I
don’t know”. I was worried about my finances, but I invested it because I believe that
whatever you put out there in the universe, it’s going to come back to you. I remember we
were talking about it and I did make the investment, but it came back in two different
ways. One was bonuses and another way where I got what I invested back within months.
To me that was amazing because it wasn’t something that I was like, “I need to get this
money back somehow.” It just came to me.

Lindsay: Yes, so cool. Now you have all these tools for life. You have these programs. I’m
updating them and you guys get the updates and we get to go through them again and
again for every uplevel because this is only the beginning if you want it to be. You can
keep going from here. So many people, like we’ve talked about, just stay stuck. They just
keep the same thoughts, the same behavior on repeat. Now you’re at a place where it’s
like, “Okay, I’m at this new place, this is really awesome. Maybe I’ll stay here for a little bit
and then I’ll want to uplevel again and again and again.” Now just the whole world feels
like an opportunity, don’t you agree?

Cecilia: Yes. When I signed up, I always felt unsafe and I had trouble trusting people. When
I did coaching with you, I felt really supported in every which way. I think the community
that you have built, part of Lindsay Preston network, it’s so supportive too. Nobody judges
the other women, everyone’s so supportive. I felt like I wasn’t alone in it. I always had
Lindsay or I always had the women that are in that group.

I always felt extremely, extremely supported. I felt like I have access to these programs If I
want to do them again, and if there’s other things that I want to work on, other aspects of
my life. I felt like you get so much more out of the investment. You get so, so much more.
That is for me, it was completely worth it and it continues being worth it.

Lindsay: I’m so glad you say that. It’s so true, I think. I know, it is for my coaching. What’s
so funny is there was even a part where you stepped away process and you said “Lindsay, I
need a break.” I think we took a month or so. I respected that. Even though I really wanted
to keep going, I was like “Okay, I’m just going to give her this time, I’m going to see where
she comes,” because you were working through some stuff. I kept just gently reaching out
to you, where are you at? In essence, I was trying to still hold space where we were going
but still let you have your own beliefs in where you wanted to go.

It was so cool that we were able to come back and really finish strong because I was a
little worried. I was like “Oh, man, she’s going through this thing. Is she going to be able to
process through it?” You did it. It just shows, A, your strength, and two, the power of the
tools. You kept using those tools to get through it. It was good that you trusted me enough
to do that, because our brain can self-sabotage, like “Who’s Lindsay? What is this?”

Again, it was just so great you were so open about everything because a lot of times,
people, they won’t tell me when they’re mad at me or what’s going on. They just feel like
they need to be perfect. No, we’re here to just dig deep. Tell me all the things, tell me how
you hate me, let’s coach on it because I really want to take you to where you want to go
and I know it’s uncomfortable. I’m glad you felt supported even though there were times I
know I pushed you to look at things a little bit differently.

Cecilia: Yes, and that’s one piece of advice that I would tell people because I think when
that happened where I was, “Oh my God, Lindsay is going to be mad.” That was in my mind.
My thought, “Lindsay is going to be mad at me.” That was my thought that I had in my
head. Then when I decided to be honest and upfront with you, I felt like you really helped
me. It was just an opportunity for me to grow. Even the time I took the month off, it was
because of the person I was with. I just felt like I couldn’t handle everything. I like that you
weren’t pushy about it. You were just checking in on me and I think that’s something that I
want people to know that you are very genuine.

I always felt like you actually care about all of your clients. For you, you are really here.
You really care about helping us grow. I think that is your purpose. You’re just a very loving
person. I felt that and that’s why I stayed so long and I’m going to continue staying. With
some other people or coaches, it’s more about the money for them. I think for you, it’s very
different. Where it’s like, “Lindsay does care about me and she cares about my growth.”
Even when I did take the month off, I felt like you were there for me and you really
genuinely cared about how to help me and help me grow.

Lindsay: Good, I’m glad you felt that. I always say that getting to work with you all is what
I strive for, and then the money is the cherry on top. It’s like, “I have to get paid somehow,
it’s the way the world works.” I’m so glad that comes across. Is there anything else that we
left out of the journey that you want to share?

Cecilia: I think yes. I don’t know if I already mentioned this. One of the biggest things that I
got out of it was that I didn’t know who I was when I started coaching with you. I know it
sounds weird but I didn’t even know what I valued. I didn’t know what my beliefs were. I
didn’t know what I liked or disliked. I just didn’t know myself. Coaching really helped me
discover who I really, really was.

Looking back on it, I don’t know where I would have been going down the line at 40, 45,
50 being that type of person that didn’t know who she was. I think when you don’t know
who you are it’s so easy to go along with what other people are doing or just be in
relationships that are not healthy for you, that are not adding to your life. I can’t tell
people enough how this coaching changed my life and just meeting you changed my life.
That’s the last thing I wanted to tell people.

Lindsay: Oh, good. I always say coaching is the best investment you’ll ever make.
[chuckles] It has been in my life every time. Investing in yourself continues to pay you back
because that’s you, it’s not like a purse that’s going to wear out or a vacation that will end.
Like you said, you’re with yourself all the time. Thank you for sharing your story today.
We’re so appreciative of you. I know we’re keeping your privacy so you don’t have any way
for everyone to reach out. Thank you again for being so vulnerable and so honest.

Cecilia: Thank you for having me.

[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.

Looking for MORE? Subscribe to the podcast!

subscribe on apple podcasts
subscribe on stitcher
subscribe on spotify
subscribe on android
subscribe on pocketcasts

Love the Show?

Leave a review on your favorite podcast player and submit a picture of your review here to receive a free downloadable “Wisdom from the first 100 Episodes” book!

0 Comments

Submit a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Hi! I'm Lindsay

Hi! I’m Lindsay Elizabeth Preston. I’m a certified & trauma-informed life & leadership coach who has spent the last decade helping successful women create lives that feel as good on the inside as they look on the outside by using my neuroscience-backed coaching process called, Awakened Woman.


Latest Posts


Categories