How to Find Yourself Again When Your Life Doesn’t Feel Like Yours

Tania: Let’s look at the whole system. Let’s look at every aspect of your life.

Dr. Lisa: Have you ever looked around at your life and thought, wait, whose life is this? How did I get here? This wasn’t what I had in mind. And you know, I think that especially as we evolve through the years, move forward through time, we all can have some, huh, that’s not where I intended to go moments.

And sometimes it’s fine. You know, things don’t always work out the way we want them to exactly. But other times we need to do a course correct.

Tania: How’s your health and fitness? How’s your spiritual life? How’s your, you know, the vision for your life, how your happiness, the quality of your life.

Dr. Lisa: And figuring out how to get back on track, how to get reconnected with yourself and what you want, that is a process in and of itself.

And we have a guide here with us today who is going to demystify this process and show you exactly what to do in order to get your internal compass working again and start moving forward in the direction that you wanna go.

Tania: If you’re not happy and fulfilled in your professional life, your personal life is probably also suffering.

Dr. Lisa: If this is your first time tuning in, I’m so glad that you found me. I’m your host, Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby. I’m a psychologist, I’m a marriage and family therapist, and I’m also a board-certified coach, here with you every single week to talk about how to facilitate your own growth, love, happiness, and success.

Tania: Let’s do a really deep dive. Where are you at?

Dr. Lisa: And I could not be more thrilled to introduce you to a very special guest, a friend, a colleague, Tania Chikhani. Tania, like me, is a marriage and family therapist. She’s also a board-certified coach who incorporates a lot of coaching psychology into her work, as well as ideas from somatic spirituality, and she has such powerful ways of helping you get reconnected with yourself.

Tania, thank you so much for being here with us today.

Tania: Thank you for having me.

Dr. Lisa: Well, I’ve really been looking forward to this conversation because, you know, I’ve had a number of meetings today with, you know, clients or other people in my life, and one of the themes that’s coming up is just this experience that I think we can all relate to on some level.

But, you know, you get to a certain point in your life, you look up one day, you look around, and the life that you have created for yourself isn’t actually that awesome in some ways, and that requires a reset, right? New intentionality around, okay, if this isn’t really working for me, what do I want instead?

And that in itself is a whole process, and that’s your expertise. So just to begin, like, where do you think that comes from and why is it so common?

Tania: I don’t know. Like, you know, I think there’s so many factors. First of all, we’re growing and changing and evolving, and so, you know, what worked for us in our 20s maybe isn’t working or the same that we want in our 30s and 40s, and those goals and those visions and all of that. Also many times we have other factors that influence who we wanna be. Our families, our belief systems, our things like that, and we get to a stage where we reach the goal that we’ve worked our whole life towards, and we’re like, “This isn’t actually that fulfilling.”

And so I think, you know, there’s many reasons and many different scenarios, but change and transition seems to be a universal human quality, and I think this reflects that.

Dr. Lisa: Well, that’s such a beautiful way to think about it, you know? And also so, like, compassionate and normalizing.

Like, if you’re having that experience, it doesn’t mean that you’ve done anything wrong, but it’s really just sort of the reality of being a person moving through time. And especially, I love what you just said. You know, a lot of the things that we do are really quite long-term. I mean, getting established in a career is, for a lot of people, a multi-decade process or you know, having a family.

And it not only do the circumstances around you change 10, 15, 20 years later, but, like, you’re evolving the whole time, too, and what once fit might not for the person that you’ve become. And so we just really need to take stock of that in a different way from time to time.

That makes a lot of sense.

Dr. Lisa: Well, you know, let me ask you about another piece of this, because I think one of the things that can happen is that when people arrive in that place and they’re just dissatisfied, you know, like, kinda angsty, it can feel really overwhelming and sometimes make people believe that their whole life is a disaster.

They have to make big dramatic changes. And I know from my own experience in coaching, it can be really helpful to put a structured way of assisting people in, like, thinking about different domains of life as sort of their own things. Because, like, you could have so many parts of your life that are working really well, but perhaps your physical health isn’t what you would want it to be.

Or maybe your physical health and your relationship aren’t what you want them to be, but it, that doesn’t mean that your whole life is a dumpster fire. Can you take us into how you help people do some of that work of assessments?

Tania: You know, I… A lot of my clients come to me when the fire’s burning everything, you know, as they’re in a period of transition because that’s really when you realize things aren’t working and you do need to make a change. And many times, you know, they’ll come to me for one reason, career, marriage relationship changes. But we really see there’s such a strong correlation.

You know, if you’re not happy and fulfilled in your professional life, your personal life is probably also suffering. And so also as a marriage and family therapist, I take a systemic lens of let’s look at the whole system. Let’s look at every aspect of your life. Not just your relationship, your social life, but how’s your health and fitness?

How’s your spiritual life? How’s your, you know, the vision for your life? How… Your happiness, the quality of your life. And I think that’s what’s important, where there is an inciting incident. You know, most people don’t like to come to coaching or therapy and things like that. It’s not fun.

Like, you’re just, you know. Nobody really wants to talk to us.

Dr. Lisa: I’m not gonna take that personally, but I think you’re right. But yeah.

Tania: And so but when they do, it’s something’s really alive in them and this desire to change. And when we look at it, you know, it’s… It can be simple steps.

Sometimes it… We don’t even need to focus on, you know, that one thing that’s causing the crisis. Maybe if we start creating different habits, different behaviors on a different topic…

They can work together and help you move it. So when clients come to me, you know, we just start with that.

We start with, what’s the vision? Like what’s going on? Where do you wanna go? What are your dreams, your hopes, your desires? And then we look at where are you at right now? Like, let’s do a really deep dive. Where are you at in all 12 categories of life not just the thing that brought you here.

Dr. Lisa: Interesting. Okay. So and then this is also something great to normalize it. Typically, it does take feeling like you are having a crisis to be motivated enough to, you know, connect with somebody like me or Tania and start the conversation. And there, there’s oftentimes this acute pain around one dimension of life that is like that precipitating incident, the catalyst so to speak.

But you’re saying though is so interesting because you’re like, “Everything is related.” Like, even if you are convinced that you just hate your job so much, and if you had a different career path, everything else in your life would be better and different, you’re saying that that’s actually not true. Like, that your career would touch a relationship or your health or your spirituality even.

I mean, can you just take us into this a little bit more deeply? Because this is counterintuitive.

Tania: You know, when I started, I started as a career coach and an executive coach. I…

Dr. Lisa: And have an MBA. Oh my gosh. Yes. I forgot to even mention that in your intro.

Tania: Yes.

I’ve had my own personal transition story for when I had to redefine my life. But in terms of, you know, when we started that, we had a… All my clients were coming for you know, leadership development, they were looking for a new job, they wanted to transition, they were laid off from their job. Purely career matters professional matters.

And I just started noticing that there was such a strong correlation. Like, you know, they were having trouble in all relationships, not just relationships with their colleagues, relationships with their children, their… You know? So and so I did a bit more deeper dive on that, and studies do show that there is a strong correlation on this.

And that’s where I started getting really interested in the relational aspect and when I became a marriage and family therapist because I felt you couldn’t, you couldn’t separate. You know, you’re one person, and if you’re gonna live in integrity and congruence, you’re really going to have to look at everything and work through all aspects.

Dr. Lisa: Interesting. And so then what I think I’m hearing you say is that… Well, and maybe it’s a both/and, that stressors from the job or things that you’re experiencing in the career domain can sort of influence and have this ripple effect on other areas of your life. But what I’m also hearing you say is that you are the same person when you go to work or when you’re at home, and that what you started to experience as an executive coach before you became an MFT is that there were these kind of bigger, broader, deeper patterns that were showing up in different places. And when people were coming in talking about job stress or difficult relationships at work, you saw more.

Tania: And let me just rephrase that ideally you’re the same person.

Ideally. You’re not putting on a mask when you’re at the office. That’s a different problem. That’s what creates a lot of, you know, the stress, the, just the dissatisfaction when you can’t be authentically yourself. And many times you don’t even know who your authentic self is because there’s so many different roles you play. And so that’s kinda what we do in my room. We try to like peel off this, these layers, this… You know, I always say it’s like we’re peeling the onion to get to the root.

Dr. Lisa: Oh, this is going so much deeper. It’s, I mean, it’s really not even exploring like how would you rate yourself in the health domain of your life?

You’re saying do you even know who you are on like a fundamental level?

Tania: That’s it.

Dr. Lisa: The people get disconnected from that over time. Totally.

But that makes sense though. You know, I mean, I think especially being a air quote functional adult really requires us to be, the word that’s coming up, like selfless, self-sacrificing in the way.

You know, I mean, as a parent, it doesn’t really matter what your preference would be. You know, weeknights when your kid needs dinner and a bath and homework and it’s, it, it’s disregarded. Or there’s so much stuff that you just have to do both at work, at home, and that over time so much of that can become, like, so automatic that it’s like, “What do I enjoy? What is meaningful to me?”

Tania: And, you know, in this fast-paced life, very, we have very little luxury to ask ourselves that. As, you know? And so to have that ability to just take a breath take some space and understand that, you know, I find it’s a privilege, but also it feels to me like the key, one of the turning points for your own happiness and success and growth.

Dr. Lisa: Okay. Completely agreed. And this is also big. Like, this is a big work, as they would say in Montessori, right? And so for our friends listening to this, perhaps with tears in their eyes thinking, “Oh my gosh, yes. This is me. This has happened to me.” Obviously, this is an experiential process that unfolds over time. And I just wanna make everybody aware of this. Especially in this day and age, like, so much of, I think, what people are thinking that we do or what coaching is or therapy is, like, informational. Like, just tell me what to do, right? But what I think people don’t realize is that, you know, people like me and you are creating experiences for people that unfold over time, and I just wanna say that out loud to manage everybody’s expectations here.

Dr. Lisa: But, like, for somebody who’s listening to this and thinking, “How do I even begin to get back into contact with who am I now?” Where might they even start?

Tania: You know, that’s a great question, and I think that really depends on who they are and how they respond. I find a lot of, a lot of clients, it’s the physical.

It’s the body. So it’s even working with your hands, and just finding places and avenues where you find joy or creativity or you can connect. You know? You can connect to the earth to whatever it is.

Dr. Lisa: So you’re saying just, like, start paying attention to what feels good.

Okay.

Tania: You know, we always talk about like go to the gym, sweat, dance. Do things like that. Like do things that will make you feel alive. Call some friends. Go out for, you know, for dinner, just laughing and playing. And I think that’s the starting. It’s like this push of getting into your bodies in a sense.

You know, I’m also a somatic therapist and coach, and I find the body is real it’s like this tuning fork. And so what are, what can you do to feel alive? For some people it’s travel. Let’s go to a different country and experience foreign new cultures and things like that.

But it’s almost as if… And, you know, I’m talking more about the clients that come to me, and they really come to me in those periods of transition. And so we kinda need to interrupt that pattern. You know, they’ve been leading a life that it may be is or has not felt like it’s their own. But whatever it is, they’re in a stage where they wanna change, but they don’t know how.

It’s so overwhelming.

Dr. Lisa: You know? It is overwhelming. Well, and also too, like I’m hearing everything that you’re saying, and like so important. Like, you know, to start doing stuff and getting out into the world, and that there’s so much power for connecting with your physical experience.

But I think there’s also this and I think I’ve experienced this in my own life, and I don’t know if you have, but like, I don’t know what would be fun for me with certain things. And it’s like you almost need to have experiments again. Like, I’m just gonna do random stuff, and maybe I won’t like some of it, but maybe I will like some of it.

And it’s like almost having to… What’s the word that I’m looking for? Like it, it’s just like a rediscovery.

Is that the right way?

Tania: I see it like that. As children, we’re discovering, there’s this curiosity around the whole, what, you know if you’ve ever seen children playing in a sandbox or wherever it is.

“Oh, there’s a new color. There’s a new, you know, thing we can play with.” And so sometimes that’s what it is. Look at you know, see what’s being offered, the classes that’s being offered in your local community. It could be a breathwork class. It could be even literally a laughter yoga class, which is just gonna force you to laugh, you know?

Dr. Lisa: I want to go to a laughter yoga. I didn’t know that was a thing. We have goat yoga in Boulder County, but gonna sign up for that. But yeah, like, just to see what is interesting.

Dr. Lisa: But also what I’m hearing in here is like, it’s okay to not know what you really want or what you like. And I think that some people, like, that feels like its own sort of pressure.

That it can turn into this intellectualization. Like…

It, and its own kind of anxiety. You’re like, “Just stop. Just go do stuff.” “Be random. It’s okay.”

Tania: Exactly. That reminds me I don’t know if you have seen the movie Runaway Bride?

Dr. Lisa: No.

Tania: With Julia Roberts, and basically…

Dr. Lisa: Oh, from ages ago. I never saw that one.

Tania: So basically, you know, she would, like, take on the partner that she was engaged to that, you know, in that phase of her life. And, you know, she kept going deep relationships up to the wedding, and then she’d run away.

But there was this scene where one of her friends, you know, asked her, “I’ve noticed…”

There was a journalist who was doing like, an exposé on her. And he’s like, “I noticed that the eggs you eat in the morning are based on your fiancé’s favorite eggs.” So if she’s with one person who likes poached eggs, she eats poached eggs every day, and omelet. And so then there’s this scene where she’s sitting.

She’s like, “I’ve got to change this pattern. I’ve got to change this habit.” And she’s got eggs laid out on the table, every kind of egg you can, you can imagine, and she’s tasting them all to see what does she like, not what is her culture telling her or her relationships or her, you know, her job, her work.

What does she as an individual like? And I feel that’s kind of what we’re trying to get at. You know? You’ve built a life on other people and other things and your younger self’s wants and desires, but that’s not who you are today in this moment. And so let’s try to figure out who that is.

Dr. Lisa: I mean, it’s so powerful, with compassion, with curiosity with openness, but it’s like this invitation to just find out. That’s so good.

Dr. Lisa: And so we started talking about some of your ideas for how to reconnect with yourself, and I’d love for you to take us deeper into this. I mean…

Incorporating somatic components, even spiritual components.

So with the experiences you’re creating for your clients, where do you go?

Tania: Again, it’s really customized on them and who they are, because none of us are the same. I have some who are very kinesthetic and, you know, they embody things through feeling and touch and things like that. And others who are, you know, more mental and you know, visual and, you know, the thinkers and the analysts and things.

And so it really depends on you, and I think this is what part of what this process is finding out who you are. And so how to connect, there’s many ways to quiet the mind, in a sense. And so I incorporate a lot of mindfulness techniques, a lot of meditations. That’s part of the experiential work of you know, how can we tune in, listen to our body?

What, you know, what was like a pain in our thigh? Is that a pain in our thigh, or is that our thigh, you know. Part of the somatic psychotherapy is a lot of these symptoms show up in the body, and many times it’s an access point to your unconscious of what’s beneath the surface, in a sense. And so we kinda use that as a tool to really see what’s playing out, what’s going on under the surface.

But you know, for many people meditation is hard, you know? We’re trained to…

Dr. Lisa: I hate it.

Tania: Exactly. Like everyone says if, you know, you wanna see the biggest failure, like try to meditate and, you know, go like that.

So, but meditation doesn’t have to be sitting cross-legged on a cushion chanting a mantra or anything like that. It could be gardening, using your hands. It could be taking a walk. It could be sewing. But the importance is to turn off that chatter brain so you can hear the whispers that are on the other side.

And I think that’s part of that access point. Some people with journaling, writing doing things to really open up that right brain, which we don’t get to use that much, most of us.

Dr. Lisa: I, I’m having like all kinds of ideas exploding in my mind all at once and now I have to organize my reaction to this because I, I’m just so struck by what you’re saying. The theme here is that no matter what you feel about meditation, our ability to kind of intellectualize, rationalize, worry about stuff is really an obstacle when it comes to being in contact with your true self many times.

And I know that. I mean, I can, I can rationalize myself into all kinds of stuff, right? But what you’re saying is that your body is communicating with you if you know how to listen to it, and that simply finding ways to be in the present and grounded in physical reality is an entry point.

But also and I think this has been my experience frequently. Like I love journaling, and I, just something about like how do I feel, and being able to put it into words through writing is really helpful for me because like I’ll write stuff and be like, “Oh, I didn’t know that I felt that way.” But it’s kind of understanding what your own access points are, and maybe it can be more than one.

Dr. Lisa: Is it okay to ask, like for you, I mean, have you ever gone through this and thinking like, “How do I stay in touch with myself?”

Tania: I mean, I think part of, you know, you always say you teach what you, what you most need to learn. For me, you know, that was my story. I built my life.

I was going to be the vice president of marketing for a huge Fortune 500 company.

Dr. Lisa: Wow.

Tania: And that’s what I worked towards for years and years. That’s where I got the MBA. I worked in corporate for 15 years brand management, like, you know. And then I reached a stage where on the outside, like, my financial life was really healthy, my career prospects, you know.

I hadn’t reached 30 and I was already managing a half a billion dollar brand. So…

Dr. Lisa: Oh my gosh.

Tania: Exactly. So on the outside, everything looked amazing, but those other factors, health and fitness was zero. My relationship life, like, didn’t exist. Like, there were many other factors where I wasn’t really happy.

I wasn’t internally successful. My mind, like, you know, always chattering. There was, there was, you know… I love to learn things and do new things, but there… I had no access to myself and who I was and what I needed and what would help me grow and thrive and just be happy and content and peace.

And so I did a really deep dive where I left corporate. I kind of, I say it was like this long gap year of I traveled the world and I took every single personal development program I could get my hands on to find myself in a way. And that is when I fell in love with coaching, but, and meditation and connection.

But so for me, the access is really connecting with the land, connecting really grounding myself, really being in meditation and things like that. But it took a while to find that, and I think that’s where I did that big, deep dive. I’ve transitioned into coaching and into therapy and into all of that because I felt that spark again, you know?

For me, it didn’t matter if I sold another unit of whatever it was I was selling. It almost felt like I needed more. And I had no idea, you know, what or how to do. So I experimented with everything. I went back to school and all of these things. And so sometimes you just don’t know and, you know you’re stuck in the patterns and all of that, and sometimes you need an outside nudge. I had so many coaches and mentors to help me. And they come to you in the right time. You know?

Dr. Lisa: Well, and that, that’s also a good point because okay, first of all, I think I, and all of our friends here as part of this conversation today, Tania, I mean, for, I’m so struck by the courage and also, like, the trust that went into your own leap of faith. I mean, that’s the only way that you can say it because, like, you know, it could also have been really easy to talk yourself out of all of that. Like, things are fine. I’m fine, like, doing that thing. You know, it’s not that bad. But instead you were like, “I am actually not gonna do this anymore,” and this giant experiment where you didn’t know what was gonna happen.

Set off into the unknown, like this year of travel and exploration, and just, like, how courageous that was. And also because it’s so easy to talk yourself out of that kind of thing, you almost need somebody holding the other side of the rope that’s like, “Keep going. It’s okay.”

Because I would also imagine you probably had friends and family who thought you were having a mental breakdown and were like really worried about you. Is that fair to say?

Tania: No, but also, I didn’t just like, you know, I knew. I made a commitment to myself. I had a period of time, and, you know, some…

I was privileged to have some funds, set aside where I knew I could always go back to the old life, you know? I had enough. I could always take another job. I could always, you know, really. So with that, I did have a security blanket of sorts.

But I knew in my soul I, like I couldn’t do one more day.

There was, you know, like I kept saying my joie de vivre, like the joy of life was missing. And so there’s, I find there’s always a calling of sorts. You know, everyone’s hero’s journey, there’s like that inciting incident that like pushes you in a way, and you have to make a choice. You either continue sleeping or you step up and you try it.

And I, you know, it took me many years to do this, so it’s not like, you know, you just jump and you do it. It took me many years and a lot of planning and a lot of like, you know, thinking and all these things, but at the end I knew I had to do it because, you know, I just, I wasn’t happy.

Dr. Lisa: Well, and now because of that work you’re in a position to help other people do exactly that, which must be so meaningful and exciting for you to walk back into the fire in some ways and light the way forward for people who really need to do that as well, but might be feeling scared or confused or overwhelmed, like all the things.

And that they need a guide, and that’s you.

Tania: No, and I feel very lucky and privileged to be able to do that. And really excited because I think, you know, no story is the same, and when you tap into that inner truth, just… You know, I always say you, you’re, we’re creating a different story for the generations to come.

That’s when change happens. That’s when growth happens in the world. That’s when, you know, we become a better society. And so for me, I love it, and I feel very lucky that I’m, I found it and I’m able to do it.

Dr. Lisa: And you know, something that you just said, that inner voice part reminded me of something else that I would love to hear your thoughts on, because spirituality can be such a powerful and important dimension of life for many people.

Not all people, and you do not have to be a spiritual person or have a relationship with something larger than yourself. There are so many ways to be a happy person and have a nice life. And I feel like in a lot of ways, spirituality is kind of the third rail of our profession, right? So as psychotherapists and professional counselors, we need to be very careful around spirituality creating space for other people to talk about their belief system, but like, not always going there.

And certainly, like, you know, as psychotherapists, we’re here to diagnose and treat clinical mental health conditions, and we’re really like focused on the source of things like depression, anxiety, trauma. There’s that. But I think that what you’re doing in the coaching realm is opening this up to such a larger space, you know, values, meaning, what, who are you?

What is your purpose in life? And that is really this anchor to a more powerful spiritual dimension. And so I’d be so curious to hear your just perspective or ideas on how someone could start to get tapped into that if it’s undefined or even how to use an existing faith system to get more clear about some of these macro, like big picture questions.

Who am, what is my life about? What am I here to do?

Tania: And I feel, you know, as a society, we have, everyone has different thoughts and feelings around spirituality, around religion, and all these things. And so it’s, you know, I’m never here to prescribe anything to anyone in a sense.

The way I see it is, not the way I see it, the way, you know… It almost feels like there’s three different forms of accessing spirituality. And, you know, this was taught to me by one of my teachers, where the first form, and that’s the one we’re most used to, is, you know, kinda someone else tells us what it is, whether it’s a religious text or a spiritual leader or things like that.

So the spirituality is almost outside of us told to us.

Dr. Lisa: This is the way. Okay. This is the way.

Tania: Exactly.

And I think that’s the part that many of us have been experienced with and have different feelings and responses to.

Then there’s the spirituality that is the inner knowing.

You connect to your heart, you connect to yourself, your spirit, the inner voice and it kinda guides you into, you know, that’s kind of where they, it’s, I don’t know if you’ve heard the, like, the God within kind of thing? Of you know, that’s the truth, the inner soul.

And then there’s the universal spirituality where it’s like we’re connected to a bigger thing.

The cosmos, the universe, the, you know humanity as a whole, in a sense.

And so we can tap into that connection in any of those three ways.

And it doesn’t have to be… Like, for me, when I first tapped into my spirituality, it wasn’t in the church or the mosque or the, you know, the traditional religious senses.

It was taking walks in the, in the forest, sitting in the ocean, in the beach. In nature. Having the sand in my hand, the water around me, hearing the leaves, the bird, you know? So it doesn’t have to… Like, that, those are the access points, those entry points that kind of just gets you to quiet your mind to hear that different sensation, feeling, sense of knowing. You know, some people hear it, some people see it, some people feel it as goosebumps. And so that’s kind of what we’re trying to do. And so I think your question was how do we start or yeah.

Dr. Lisa: Well, I mean, I think… No. I think that you answered it, which is like how do you pull that lever, so to speak as another dimension? And what you’re saying is with, and I love this idea, you know, the three different pathways of spirituality, and also that you can have all of those. You can be in a very well-defined belief system where there are teachings and, you know…

The ritual around it, and also have a personal relationship with the, you know, hearing the voice of God, whatever you wanna call it, inside of you. But that also this experience of being connected to, like, this universal, like, we’re all on a spaceship together kind of experience. And so it’s, those could all be there at one, but again, going just back to this idea, like, getting really curious and starting to notice where do I feel connected?

Is it sitting in church on a Sunday morning with a group of other people? Is that really where I feel deeply connected? Or is it being in nature? Or is it having, you know, a different experience and that it’s all okay. But giving yourself this almost invitation to start noticing.

Tania: Sometimes the habits help you open to that, you know? For, think of, like, the really old, like, yogic traditions and the more contemporary religions, you know? There’s moving the body, there’s seeing, there’s saying certain words in a pattern. There’s some have discipline, some have community, some have connection.

But it’s all different access points for…

Dr. Lisa: Absolutely. Or even art. I mean, you know, but we could say all kinds of things about the Catholic Church, but part of my spiritual background with my family was Catholicism. And I tell you what, I mean, what they can do, and I’ve just had some experiences, not all the time, but in a few. What they’re doing with art and light and architecture and design and music, and they bust out the frankincense, incense. I mean, like they are creating a whole atmosphere that is very powerful. And just pay attention to that and notice it. So good. Tania, this is fascinating. And I love the way that you’re really creating so much dimensionality for people to start tapping into different aspects of the self in a new way.

Like, getting back into contact with who you really are, and that there are so many pathways to doing that: physical, spiritual, environmental with your own voice, with your own just life, with what you enjoy. And this is always the first step of actualizing anything, is getting more information. And, you know, if for all of our friends who are listening, if you have not been feeling good, if you’ve been feeling dissatisfied, if you’re feeling like there is a gap between what you have in your life right now and what, like, would really feel good to you but you don’t even know what to move towards yet, this is where we start.

That has been just so awesome to hear you talk us through.

Dr. Lisa: But then there’s that next part, and that’s so much of what the coaching process is, not just discovery. Because we can also do that as therapists. In therapists, in counseling, there’s like a lot of the discovery, but that’s oftentimes where it stays, right? I mean, that like insight and understanding. There’s the hope that it could translate into a different outcome outside the counseling room, but that’s actually not what therapists are there to do. But a coach is like, “So.” And so then I would love to hear you talk a little bit more about what we can begin doing with the information we’re gathering about ourselves in different domains of life. And maybe just to begin, you started I don’t know if you said this out loud, but this is what I kind of interpreted you as saying, this like wheel of life idea, right? Different dimensions of life that you know, sometimes have things in common with others, sometimes they’re, are uniquely yours.

But might include health. It might include a intimate partnership. It might include spirituality. Like, talk us through what you see as being the usual, ones and then we can talk through more specifically how to create change.

Tania: Sure. So that’s, you know, when someone first comes to me that’s our first step is let’s see, let’s kind of do a visioning of where you wanna go. And we do that, but we’re doing that based on today’s reality. So then we have to look at what is today’s reality. Where are we at today, which is kind of what we discussed before.

Dr. Lisa: Yeah.

Tania: And so we do a deep dive.

Where are you in your health and fitness? Where are you in your intellectual life? Where are you in your spiritual life, in your love life, in your social life, in your career, in your financial life in your character life? Like, what kind of person do you wanna be? How do you wanna show up?

Dr. Lisa: Oh. Whoa. That was a big one, Tania.

Tania: So there’s like a whole bunch of, you know… I follow 12 categories. And this was taught to me by one of my teachers. And so we look at where you’re at in all those categories. And the last category is your life vision. So not where you at in isolation, but as a whole.

How is the person, you know, in that? And where’s the gap? And I think this is the big part of, you know, with therapy, we stay on the gap and the analysis and the looking back. But here we’re looking at how can we bridge that gap? And really, once we have that clear understanding of honestly where we’re at, not kind of you know where we’d like to be or hesitant, but really looking at where you’re at today and that gap, and what needs to happen.

Like, where do you really wanna go? What can you shed? What can you release? What do you have to bring in and add into to achieve that vision and that goal? And then it kind of becomes clearer of how to make that happen. What are the simple steps? I’m always saying, like, what’s that one simple step you can take to just inch yourself forward?

Because… But that’s really overwhelming and hard when you’re starting, and it’s like everything needs to change, nothing is working, versus let’s break everything down. Let’s look at where we need to go and what’s easiest to start with. You know, maybe in the first year we start with our bodies.

We start, you know, going to the gym, eating better, being healthier. Second year, we…

Dr. Lisa: Oh, no, not to interrupt you.

Tania: Go ahead.

Dr. Lisa: It’s just so much wisdom in that. Like, choose one. And but also, like wisdom in choose the one that is going to have a lot of impact.

Like, what you were just saying about physical health, I could totally relate to. And that, this idea of a keystone. Something that we can do first, and I know that times in my own life, you know, I have really prioritized everything else except my physical health, and I didn’t even realize it until I got to a place where I was just tired.

You know, just kind of like simmering in anxiety that really does have such a physiological component, like not sleeping well, not feeling strong or energized. And also, like, I think especially as we get older, right? I mean, there starts to be a cognitive impact, like kind of not clear.

And you know, just got to this point where that was something that I was like, “Okay, this year the only thing I’m gonna do is focus on physical health.” And you know, starting to exercise regularly and paying more attention to what I’m eating, and it made such a difference because then like you have more energy that shows up in other parts of your life. And so, and I’m not saying that everybody has to start with physical health. No. Maybe for some people it is really more spirituality or more relational. It could be anything, but like, just to choose one and go.

Tania: Or one.

Like in, you know, in the office or the business world, we start with this 10-year plan for where the business is going. And then we break it down to the annual plan, and then we have the quarterly plan, and then every month, you know, we meet. And then the weekly plan, maybe you meet with your line manager of what are we doing this week to build.

And with our lives, we can do the same things. And, you know, I really advocate that because somewhere I read, or someone told me, I don’t remember exactly, but as humans, we tend to overestimate what we can do, our goals for a year, and underestimate what we do for three year, in three years.

Like, the goals we set in three years, most times we can over surpass them, but we kinda overestimate those annual goals. And if we overestimate them and we don’t achieve them, then we get deflated, then, you know, all the other things come up. And so what we’re trying to do is to create wins, small wins that will, over time, give you that 10-year goal or vision that you’re wanting.

Dr. Lisa: That’s so smart. And a good reminder, I think, that I could certainly get overly ambitious about what I’m like, “What I’m gonna do in a day,” you know? Let alone a year. But, like, to have awareness about your capacity, what’s realistic, design whatever you’re doing so that you have wins is so important, and there’s so much wisdom there.

Dr. Lisa: But before I let you go, can I just ask you about one other dimension of this that I think, I think needs to be more part of the conversation and sometimes what I worry about, especially in a day and age where people are like, “Claude, what do I do?” Right? And there’s this idea that if somebody just told me what to do, or having the answer, having more information is gonna solve this, as opposed to the experiential power of what you’re doing, Tania. Is this other piece of creating the outcome, which is understanding the obstacles in a different way. And in my experience, in my own life, and certainly with clients, what I’ve seen time and time again is that many times there can be a clear vision.

People know what they want. There can be a motivation to change, if people can understand, okay, now I even have an action plan. But they’re not fully aware of these frequently internal obstacles, these old things that will drag them off the plan or be like these habitual ways of being or even thinking, and they are blind spots.

And so I know that this is unique to every person, but I feel like this is the power of having a relationship with somebody like you as a therapist and a coach who can design all of this, be having these conversations, but also be giving people visibility into the things that they don’t even know they don’t know.

Is that what you see? Or would you… Are… Do you know what I’m talking about?

Tania: No, I do. You know what I mean? And you know, I get this feedback a lot, because I was a coach first before I was a therapist. And when clients would come to me, my therapy clients would come to me, they’d say, “Tania, you’re so different because you do hold us accountable.”

You know, I hold the space, the warmth, the, you know, that makes therapy work. But also, I’m a coach. I’m action-oriented at heart, and so I’m going to be direct. I am. And I think that’s what a lot of coaching, why the benefits of coaching is, we’re not going to just hold your hand and say things are okay.

If we can push, we’re gonna lovingly and gently push you when you need to be pushed. We’re gonna bring in different ideas. We’re never the experts. You’re the expert of your life, and you’re going to guide what happens, and you know your life better than any of us. But sometimes it takes an outsider to help you see those blind spots.

Everyone’s like, there’s a rear view mirror and there’s two side mirrors when you’re driving because you don’t know what you don’t know and you can’t see what you can’t see. You’re still driving, but I see that coach as kinda like helping, holding that space to support you in a loving and gentle and sometimes more directive way.

And so yeah, I know that’s the feedback I get, and the clients that come to me, they want that. They want… You know? Someone to push them when they need to be pushed. I hope that they feel like they…

Dr. Lisa: Well, and I know they’ve often been in therapy for years before coming to you.

They’re like, “Okay, I mean, this needs to, like, change for real.” But you know, the other thing too yeah, to be able to say things more directly and to lovingly challenge somebody to, you know, follow through. And I could also see you doing this so masterfully, Tania, is using the experience of taking action to understand things more deeply.

Like, a lot of times for me as a coach too, like we’ll talk about, “So, okay, based on what you’re talking about, where you wanna go, this is the place to work. Can we commit to doing, you know, X, Y, Z between now or next time we meet again?” And if somebody comes back and is like, “Yeah, we talked about that, but I didn’t do it,” there’s not shame in it.

It doesn’t mean that they maybe don’t want that, but, like, there are oftentimes competing goals or other things that neither of us know about yet that we didn’t know. But that if we can kinda crack into, “So what did happen with that?” in a really curious way, there’s this whole other dimension of understanding that comes from that.

But it’s like people need to be… And this is true for me too. I mean, this is why I have a coach in my own life is I’m not gonna do that by myself. No. And I don’t know what to be curious about within myself ’cause we’re all kinda like swimming in our own soup, you know what I mean? And it’s like, but to, but to have somebody be like, “What just happened there?” and unfold it is so powerful.

Tania: You know, what I said at the beginning, like how we show up in one area, we’re showing up in all areas. And so, you know, something as simple as not doing an assignment for coaching, at the end of the day it’s, who cares? You know, it’s like a very small thing, but many times when we dig a bit deeper, it tells us so much more.

You know? About what’s going on under the surface. And so…

Dr. Lisa: I love it.

Tania: Me too.

Dr. Lisa: Well, okay. And so this has been such an amazing conversation. And so what we were just talking about, there are experiential layers to this that are hard for all of us to crack into on our own, and things that anybody could do.

I mean, even today to begin the work that we’re talking about here, which designing your life in an intentional way. And so before we wrap up, can you just leave us with even one or two, you know, ideas or tools or activities that one of our friends could, like, hang up this show and go do and start to experience some new awareness?

Tania: You know, one of my favorite exercises is called the perfect day. I don’t know who created it but you can just Google it and…

Dr. Lisa: Lou Reed created it.

Tania: Lou Reed. Okay, perfect.

Dr. Lisa: I just made that up. He has a song called Perfect Day.

Tania: Oh, he did? But it’s, yeah, you can just, like, download a meditation and do it.

And it’s an exercise, it’s that 10-year vision of what is a perfect day 10 years from now? But not just the one we think we want. Like, really get into it. You wake up, how, what is the feeling of the sheets that you’re waking up to? What’s the sound? What are the smells? Who’s the first person you see?

What are the… You know, like embody it, get into it, and really see what comes up, you know? What food are you eating? Who are you engaging in conversation? What are you wearing to the office? Are you going to the office? Are, you know get deep into that. And I think that’s gonna help you see where you kind of wanna go, and then you can look at where are you at today, you know?

And how, what, you know, just are you there? Because if you’re there, that’s amazing. You know, that’s what we want for you.

Dr. Lisa: Yeah.

Tania: I always find that’s a great eye-opener for many.

Dr. Lisa: Yeah. And to add, and I’m sure that you do this as well, this is so garden variety, standard issue part of our work, probably didn’t even think about, but even that, like, simple scaling question.

Like on a scale of one to 10, if one is like I hate everything about this, and a 10 is like it’s perfect, how would you rate this? And okay, it’s an eight. Well, why is it an eight and not a one? So we’re focusing on, like, what’s good here. But also, why is it an eight and not a 10? And not in a all or nothing kind of way, but just again as a way of considering the dimensionality of it. That, that’s a tool that I frequently use with clients and with myself, quite frankly. But yeah.

Tania: I love it. And you can do it, you know, you, maybe you don’t wanna, like, invest that much time into do it, but do, like, pick three or four life categories that really speak to you.

That you feel you wanna work on, and do that exercise there. Like, where am I on this wheel? And where would I like to go?

Dr. Lisa: I might do some of that later today, Tania. I’m feeling so inspired by this whole conversation. And I really appreciate your being here with me today, with us, with our friends, and just sharing. Having this place for us to meet in. So, it’s so good. I mean, you just, you have so much wisdom and perspective and you know, you are in the trenches doing this work with people every single day in their careers, in their relationships, in their lives, and just to be able to, I don’t know, tap into some of that here with you has been so exciting.

And so I will also just say, ’cause you’re probably not gonna bring this up yourself, you are so humble, but you know, I’ve been so honored to be able to work with you at Growing Self for years and years, and cannot recommend you enough. And so just to our friends, if anybody’s listening to this thinking like, “I wanna talk to Tania.

I want Tania to help me curate the experiences, set me up with these assignments, and help me do the work that we’re talking about today,” you know, open invitation to come to growingself.com/tania. That is T-A-N-I-A. And you can talk to Tania. You can schedule a free consultation session with her and more about what’s going on in your life and see if it’s a good fit.

Tania: Thank you. Thanks.

Dr. Lisa: Wonderful. Well, Tania, thanks again for doing this, and I hope to have you back on the show another time soon. You’re just such a gem, and this is a lot of fun.

Tania: Me too. This was a lot of fun. I appreciate it.

Dr. Lisa: So I don’t know about you, but for me, one of the biggest takeaways from today’s conversation is that finding yourself is a process.

It is something that you have to invest some time into. How do we crack into our own unknown? How do we invite that quiet, wise voice to be part of the conversation again? And we talked about a lot of different strategies, things that you can use today in order to start doing that. But we also talked a lot about the blind spots, the obstacles, and how hard it can be sometimes to understand ourselves without feedback, without someone else asking questions that we might not even think to ask ourselves and much less, you know, holding up a reflection, a mirror that is creating an experience where we can understand ourselves more deeply.

And I just want you to know that if that part feels daunting, you are not alone in this. There are people who that is what they do, like Tania, who you just met today. And I think there’s so much value in having another person help us slow down, you know, take a peek under our own hood, and create an experience for us that we can’t create for ourselves so that we can tap back into our truth, who am I now?

But then also figure out, okay, if this is true for me, this is what I want, but this is where I am, what needs to happen in order for this thing that I want to come into being? And sometimes that is a long-term plan. Sometimes, you know, things are easy. We just rearrange the furniture, you know, put a coat of paint on, and we’re, like, back.

But man, sometimes these can be macro decisions that take years to unfold depending on what it is that you wanna actualize. And again, it’s very helpful to have a supporter, a guide, and somebody who can help you break this down organize your actions, figure out what’s the thing that you wanna work on first.

If you had this one piece in place, what would that make possible for what comes next? And that is part of a really effective coaching process. Yes, Tania is a therapist. We talked a lot about therapy, but you know what therapy is great for, particularly traditional talk therapy, is the insight part. How do I feel?

Why am I the way I am? All good. All absolutely good, and all very much part of a powerful coaching process that takes all that and then connects it to the then what, what’s next. If you would like to participate in an experience like that, I have some resources for you. You are, of course, welcome to come on over to growingself.com.

That’s my practice, and you can connect directly with Tania to do a deep dive. Growingself.com/tania, T-A-N-I-A. And the very first step is just to schedule a free consultation with her, a free consultation to meet her, get to know her a little bit, talk a little bit about your hopes and goals, and just see if it feels like a good fit.

If it does, then you can continue moving forward, seeing her, and, you know, devising that plan forward. First, discovery. We always have to know where we’re going, but then devising a plan forward. So take advantage of that, growingself.com/tania. All right. And so thanks again for hanging out with us today.

Great conversation. I loved it. Thanks for being here, and I will be back in touch again soon with another episode of Love, Happiness, and Success.