The WAY to WOW Shows
Pick & Make Progress with a Counselor or Coach
March 16, 2021
Automatically generated from YouTube captions; names and wording may contain errors.

[0:00] with zoom i believe zoom is a complete miracle and i'm very grateful that this challenging event has taken place with zoom existing say something with the smile in your tone and we can connect with each other and you never know if that's going to make someone's day what can we do to help that person to help them learn to start to learn to set boundaries who are you and where

[0:35] are you going what do you want for the next 24 minutes we're going to design and attain your ideal life on the way to wow show [Music] together we'll find the ideal path to get you back on the track to success and happiness [Music] on the way to wow show with your host kevin bemmel welcome to the way to wow show my guest

[1:12] is lisa joe barr the founder of and a life coach at go4it coaching specializing in working with people in recovery from mental health conditions helping them travel the journey from surviving to thriving despite the diagnosis of bipolar 1 and complex ptsd lisa herself is thriving in recovery as a peer specialist she works one-on-one she also leads workshops and groups and co-facilitates classes on mindfulness lisa has been published four times in

[1:48] chicken soup for the recovering soul daily inspirations and has published articles op-eds and columns in periodicals worldwide we're going to talk to lisa joe on skype but first i'm going to mix up a quick cocktail so you've probably heard of a high ball and i thought a high ball was just something that was in a tall thin glass but it turns out a highball is one of the most basic cocktails it has one form of liquor typically some kind of whiskey and in my case i'm going to use hotel tango bourbon i

[2:24] found out about this when i was in indianapolis indiana they have a wonderful distillery there that has a bar and kind of restaurant attached to it check it out if you're in indianapolis and then the second ingredient is some sort of non-alcoholic beverage in my case i'm just going to use some soda water but you but it could be coke or could be anything like that so super easy to mix up you just pour yourself out a little in my case bourbon and add a little of the other ingredient

[3:01] and voila you have yourself a high ball see you in a minute cheers [Music] so lisa thank you so much for being a guest on the way to wow show i'm really excited to talk to you and and help our viewers understand more about building mental resiliency so i want to start out by talking about some a question that came to my mind when i was reading your bio and that is there's there's all these different people now there's there's

[3:38] therapists there's there's coaches there's peer specialists which is what you are so how do all these who are all these people what do they do and and how do they help us build our mental resiliency it's interesting that you should ask that because um i've been going to see a therapist for many years and that person is someone who has been a an unbiased person in my life that has given me support and listening to my story and then

[4:14] reflecting it back to me as a peer specialist i listen and i'm able to also give back and share my story with with my clients and we also work on very deep deep issues that come up and i walk by their side in their recovery journey and um it's more of a mutual relationship whereas therapy is

[4:49] more the helper and the hell be um with pure special list work with being a peer specialist we work side by side it's more of a mutual relationship we help each other with my coaching work it's very similar but we do not focus on the past at all it's more where you're at and moving forward into vision and action okay great so

[5:26] how do we figure out what we need to do to work on our mental resilience and and then and therefore you know which of those professionals we need to be working with you know to get to get the best results i guess if that makes does that question make sense yes yes so uh in my opinion i would say that it would be great to i think it depends on the person but to be able to work

[6:01] with all three you would have a lot of support behind you someone who has mental health conditions or addiction issues can get a peer specialist and um be able to work one-on-one with them in order to gain a sense of not being alone and supporting them in their story getting a therapist is very helpful

[6:37] the therapists have education behind them they have to have a master's degree in order to practice it's digging deep into trauma work at times um just someone who you can um you can work with to get through rough times that sort of thing a coach if you want to not only survive in your life but learn how to thrive and really move toward your dreams

[7:12] and goals and discover what your values are and how to live a value-driven life um that can be really that that's where that would come into play okay so it sounds like um there's somewhat of a difference between a person who's who's got perhaps some major issues that they've that are that are coming out of their past um and someone who perhaps either doesn't

[7:48] have those kind of issues or maybe they do but they've kind of worked that through and is now much more future focused does that does that sound right in terms of framing where people may be at yes most definitely i would say with a therapist they can help you through shallow issues or deep issues um and i would i would say as a coach that i work with people who are in actual recovery from mental health and

[8:24] or addiction who have learned or are learning how to manage those conditions before they could actually move into a state of thriving okay so um setting aside the you know some of the real major issues like like addiction like you know those kind of traumas um which hopefully well um maybe people i take that back and say hopefully people know they're they're dealing with those maybe maybe they don't

[9:00] um but what do you in your work find are the maybe the most common um self-defeating or or self-destructive behaviors that people have that oftentimes they're they don't realize they're engaging in there are two things that i see time and again with the people that i work with as a coach as a life coach and as a peer specialist and that is a lack of social support

[9:35] lack of a social life of feeling connected and then drawing healthy boundaries healthy boundary setting and really not letting people rule their lives or run their lives um but setting healthy boundaries instead so for for someone who um is is not adequately adequately engaged socially what does that typically look like

[10:10] let's say let's say i had a friend who was in that situation how would i know well they might isolate and not really go out much so there's more of a like going into yourself and not really being open to meeting new people are being afraid of that or feeling very self-conscious about what they have to offer the world which everybody does are there things that we can do

[10:46] short of getting them involved with with a professional to help them understand that that they've got they've got a problem they've got an issue i think that people are most receptive when you begin a conversation with telling that person how much they mean to you and um followed by your concern and it's it's a very challenging dilemma for people who are not really social because on one

[11:23] hand they crave connection while on the other hand they're afraid to connect so let's um let's switch gears now to the person who doesn't set proper boundaries it's almost as if they're the direct opposite of someone who doesn't have enough engagement it's almost as if they're overly engaged and by the way i used to see this quite frequently when i was a chaplain in the navy i would have you know they were typically young sailors come to me

[11:58] and their lives were falling apart because people were taking from them left and right and and and they they couldn't sustain it all so how how do we recognize someone is is in that situation again maybe a friend or a family member how do we recognize that especially if we may be at least partly guilty of taking advantage of that person the person most often will be running ragged to do things for

[12:35] people in their lives they'll be they'll be burning at both ends and is a very uh become very apparent that they're not filling up their own cup before they start trying to help others they don't put on their own oxygen mask before they put it on other people um it can lead to exhaustion it can lead to frustration anger resentment big time so you

[13:10] from the outside you'll see someone who's not a very happy person generally so what can we do to help that person to help them learn to start to learn to set boundaries what we can do is actually be an example for them express how you set boundaries with others and to um [Music] to start somewhere small if if you haven't set good boundaries in your life for

[13:48] instance if someone someone's asking you to do something you don't want to do say telling them that you know just setting a boundary i'm i'm not able to do that for you i've got other plans or you know and um it's challenging to support someone to setting boundaries if you have problems setting them yourself so if you see someone sometimes we can

[14:23] still recognize that in another person that they're not setting proper boundaries or they're they're acting like a doormat to the people around them and i think that approaching it as let's learn how to set boundaries together in our lives because i've got some issues with that too when you start start sharing your story people become more receptive to sharing theirs and um you could work on it together

[14:59] like as a team what what have you seen in terms of trends over the last you know year or so with with with people you know with like like here in california we have lockdowns and you know a lot of people's businesses are struggling or they've lost their businesses so these are these are not just you know physical constraints i think they're emotional as well as well as spiritual constraints so what kinds of things have you seen in terms of of of mental health issues and just add

[15:35] real quickly when you were describing the person who's not socially engaged enough it's you know like right now in some cases it's like for elderly people i know for my aunt she's in a a retirement home there were times where for weeks and weeks on end she was not allowed to leave her room right and so but what kind of of trends challenges are you seeing coming out of now almost a year of this trends of watching too much news and people globalize that

[16:13] and they awfulize and catastrophize everything in their personal life and in the worlds people losing faith and humanity and just absolute terror and fear of what's happened we as human beings fear change as it is it's a very primal quality that we have back from the caveman days

[16:48] so when we're experiencing collectively this experience of covet and all the other stuff that's happened in 2020 well and this year um it's been uh it's been very challenging for people to um to take care of themselves um it seems like the more a person is going through the harder it is for them to take care of themselves and this has been the case in my own

[17:26] life too i have bipolar 1 and complex ptsd and when those conditions flare up it's more challenging for me to to do basic my basic routine which keeps me in place mentally emotionally physically spiritually so i remind people to get back to the basics to really focus on what has worked for them in the past

[18:01] and also um you know people's spirituality has really been impacted by the covet by the consequences of kovid and um that can make people feel very alone as well when they lose faith so there's been a lot of loneliness uh loneliness trend do you think that um you know zoom meetings social media have

[18:37] they um help reduce that have they made it worse how do you think the tools that we have available to us have impacted you know what what's been going on for the last year or so with zoom i believe zoom is a complete miracle and i'm very grateful that this challenging event has taken place with zoom existing because it's been a lifeline for a lot of people i i coach and i do my job at the mental

[19:14] health seminar through zoom and through the telephone it's really nice to be able to see someone someone's facial expressions and to be able to connect that way um even though we're not able to to meet in person it's still a connection and i believe that there are people who are using social media in a constructive way because people are getting real creative with ways to get together

[19:50] game nights with family or friends um events workshops on eventbrite and even i i recommend that people call someone or get in touch with like a facebook friend that they haven't met before or they haven't talked to for a long time and ask if they're willing to do a 30-minute zoom coffee coffee date since we can't go to the cafes right now it's the next best thing make yourself a

[20:26] cup of coffee you've got something tangible in your hand that has a nice hot drink in it and catch up and don't just focus on the conversation around the catastrophe or the the fear but just to merely have a conversation with someone and get to know them better and catch up despite all the weirdness that this whole clover thing has brought well and and and that's a perfect wrap up because my my last question was going to be what's

[21:01] one thing that we can do that you know can help us and and perhaps help someone else build some mental resilience i think that idea of you know having a you know a coffee date over zoom any any of us can do that even me who only drinks decaf i drink green tea so there you go all right call it a coffee date well i'll i'll toast you with my my drink right here cheers i also believe that since we all are wearing masks people can't see us smiling

[21:36] so if you're at the grocery store make light conversation with the people six feet away from you say something funny or a compliment or you know say something with the smile in your tone and we can connect with each other and you never know if that's gonna make someone's day better so lisa we have your thing for our collage and it's actually a collage itself it's it's quite beautiful very lovely intricate and and and very meaningful so i'm going to put this up here on our our our big

[22:11] collage let's put we're gonna put this flip right here and there we go and now you are uh a permanent part of the way to wow show wonderful i am so privileged to be a part of the show and that my vision board for 2020 is a part of your bigger wall of art well lisa joe thank you so much for spending this time with me with with us today we really appreciate your thoughts and especially your ideas about

[22:46] how we can ameliorate some of what's going on and continue to connect with with other people really appreciate all all of your your thoughts and your wisdom it's a pleasure to be here thank you for having me that's our show for this week thinking back to the fantastic advice that lisa joe gave us there's something we can do right away the next person we meet convey to them a smile even if you have a mask on and they can't see your face we can do it with just a word of of

[23:23] introduction a hello how you're doing let's try and do that throughout our day for anybody we meet friend or stranger courage at all times my friends marie you're still my bell darling [Music]

[24:23] [Music] you