Coaching is Changing the Midlife Experience for Women

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Liz Murray Podcast.m4a

Transcript

Hi. Hi and welcome to the You World Order Showcase podcast. I'm your host, Jill Hart, and with me today is Liz Murray, the mid life coach and guiding mid life women to live their very best lives. Liz is a transformational coach with a deep rooted passion for guiding midlife women to live their very best lives.

Because it is never too late to make changes and align your life with what matters to you. In fact, mid life brings with it a wealth of experience, knowledge and wisdom that is so unique and valuable that it is the perfect time to become the women woman you've always wanted to be. Welcome to the show, Liz. I am so excited to chat with you today.

Ohh, thank you. Thank you so much for having me on.

So how did you get started with this? I'm I'm assuming you are also a midlife woman, as am I.

I am indeed. Yes. Thank you for that. Yes. No, absolutely. So. Well, it's kind of been a sort of a theme throughout my life, really. Sort of the being within the coaching psychology side of things. I did psychology at university mainly because I didn't know what else I wanted to do. So I thought I'll do what I'm interested.

In and so and then spent after that many years flying around the world as cabin crew for Emirates and British Airways, but then trained as a councillor whilst I was with British Airways. So I was really lucky which I mean I think you would call a therapist in the states. So I I.

Was really lucky that they gave me dispensation to train at the same time as flying, which was for me the perfect company.

And and then after I finished flying, I had. I went through a.

Number of I.

Was caught up in the September the 11th attacks and it kind of after that one thing led to another and I I decided that flying was no longer for me. Love to the therapy side but really wanted to do something more.

Forward thinking, looking to the future. So then trained as a life Coach 20 odd years ago when the industry was very different from what it is.

Now.

Which I absolutely loved took time out to be a mum, be a full time mum and then came back so I'd reached mid life and realised that you see a lot of the your peers people around you you know have all of these things happening and maybe sort of loss of confidence, things like that.

And I thought, you know what? It's it pulled me back into coaching and so about four years ago, I came back into coaching, but this time coaching mid life, women.

OK.

I love that.

Yeah.

Midlife women are we were just laughing about fried green tomatoes and and Kathy Bates and it just.

You just reach a point in life where you can either look around and think, Oh my life is done. I'll just sit in front of television, eat bonbons and.

Or you can think Ohh wow, there's so much opportunity right now. You know, the kids are done. Husband is maybe retiring or, you know, winding up his career. He doesn't really need me to do all the things he can, like live some of his life by himself too.

That and also we've got more opportunities as well this generation that we are in now. So we're doubly privileged really. So there is so much that we can now do so much opportunity that we have to take advantage of that as well. So I do feel quite passionate about that.

Just the the park around menopause. When I first hit menopause back in my late 40s. I, you know, it was.

You couldn't find any information about it. You were just like out there on your own, wondering if these feelings would ever go away. And you know if if you had period problems before that point.

You're just like, oh, God, is this ever going to end? And I now just that little piece.

Of of helping women. I know you're not a menopause coach, but there are menopause coaches out there and the the ability to get the information that you need to actually like take care of some of these issues like you know, being able to sleep better if you could sleep better, you can think better if you can think better you recognize you have more.

Choices and options. You're not trapped in.

This.

The cycle of of despair and fear. What? Honestly.

Yeah, and feeling alone.

Yeah, absolutely. And and there is, thank God so much more support now for midlife women and women going through menopause and approaching the menopause as well because it is, I mean it, it was a very, very lonely time and people just didn't address these issues, didn't.

Sort of offer the support.

So I I yeah, I'm a.

Big cheerleader for menopause. Coaches and people that can support women through this time because it is. It's a massive, you know, people talk about puberty, but menopause is also a massive time of transition as well. And there's there's a lot to manage. So I think it's great that we now have the conversations and we.

Now have the support.

It's the.

And and things like hot.

Flashes. You know, women used to hide them. Now they're kind of like a badge of honor. Hey, blame on.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. And you'll mention it. And another woman will go. Ohh yeah. No way. You've been there, done that, you know. And you don't feel so alone, it it feels.

Was like that. You're going through it together and and that is so important. Really important to not feel that isolation.

Yeah. And I think in the camaraderie of of having the connections with people and and you know the Internet is great for this, it doesn't matter where you are in the world. Midlife women all have some things that we all go through in common and I you know it's it's a change in your life.

Life. But if you're going with other people and you have somebody to mentor you along the way, if you're new to it, or maybe you're you, you just woke up one day and realized that there's got to be more to life than this and they approach somebody like you and you can help them with.

But I can help them feel like themselves again. So it's just and and I do have the privilege now because of the wonders of technology, of coaching women all over the world. And you are right that it, it doesn't matter where you are in the world. We have so many similar things in common, especially at this age group.

And it is so many women sort of find themselves in midlife and always find like they've lost themselves. They've lost, you know, and and all those little sort of hopes and dreams and excitement of their 20.

Is and and they kind of reach 40s and 50s and think OK, is this it? How did I end up here? How did I? That wasn't the plan. What now? Is this it? Do I just you know and and I just feel so.

I just wanna get the message out there that no, this isn't it. This is actually, this can be a new exciting time of your life and things can change.

And it's an opportunity to do something new or even if you don't want to change your actual, you know, the landscape of your life, you can feel very differently about your life, which is wonderful. And yeah, I I consider it a privilege being able to help ladies be able to do that.

And feel so much better.

And and it's just there's subtle things, but once you understand.

How? How your thoughts and it really starts with your thoughts are impacting your life and.

You make little changes.

Over a period of time, the difference in the quality of your life and your relationships can change dramatically.

Absolutely. Yeah. It's to do with. So your thoughts come from your beliefs and so your subconscious beliefs run 95% of the show. So and often we don't even know what our subconscious beliefs were are because they were formed at a point of trauma in our lives, whatever that might be, that might be a trauma with a big T or trauma.

With a very small tea and we form a belief around it and we find that that's running our lives. So it might be it might show up as somebody.

Who?

Can't verbalize their opinions in meetings and that might have come from a point of trauma in their childhood where a teacher shouted at them for talking in class and they form that subconscious belief. It's not safe to talk in a group and but they don't realize it's there. So if you until you start doing the work and doing the subconscious.

Work. You're not going to get the breakthroughs, but it is amazing if you start doing these tweets and putting them into your life, how much your life can change, it's phenomenal.

It is phenomenal. So do you do what kind of modalities do you do with people? Do you do like hypnotherapy do you do?

Yeah. Do you do?

So what I I I use so I use coaching but I use it with belief coding and I also use positive psychology techniques so I I have a program called New Life midlife which in which we we use intensive belief coding which is is labeled as my navigation.

That what that basically is, we identify.

Usually at least.

60 limiting beliefs that are holding that person.

Back.

And then we change.

60.

So.

60 that many.

So this really is a makeover, because what we're doing is, you know, you're holding these subconscious beliefs. So we identify that and.

OK.

Over a course.

Of three sessions, we're we're healing those memories, healing those traumas, finding where they came from, and then we're imprinting new beliefs. New, empowering.

Plates.

And and then we go on to to use positive psychology techniques, which are tailored to each person, think little things that they can implement in their lives as they go forward. And then of course, they've got this completely new mindset at a subconscious level as well as the positive psychology technique. So then we go on to coach.

And it's like we've got this great new mindset. Now what we're gonna do with it, the exciting part happens. That's when the magic happens. So yeah, it's it's really rewarding for me to do and lovely to see the transformations.

So how long is your coaching program and is it one on?

One or is it?

Groups. How does all that look?

So new life, midlife is a one-on-one and it's a ten week program. So and yeah. So that's all one-on-one time with me each week with a little bit of reflection work in between.

For my clients to do in between and. Yeah, and it runs over that and then if clients want to, they can carry on after that. But the program in itself is 10 weeks, which is combined with the my navigation, the positive psychology and the coaching.

Interesting. So I was going to ask you what beliefs coding was and I think you kind of explained it, but can you?

Can you just like pull that out and and talk to me a little bit more about that?

Yeah, so belief coding, it's it's a technique where it's uses different modalities actually. So it uses CBT, EFT, kinesiology, positive psychology. So it combines a lot of different modalities.

Into a modality that, in my opinion, uses all the best parts of those modalities. Little bit of NLP as well, so that.

You're.

You will.

Identifying if somebody has a block where their belief, where that what, that belief is. What is that negative belief that's holding them back. So to give a very simple one, if somebody's afraid of flying.

The the belief formed would be something along the lines of it's not safe to fly, something bad will happen to me if I'm going to fly. So you're identifying where that belief was formed using these various modalities, but it's a very specific way that it's done. So it's it's.

It's it's the same method that we're using each time and and then what we're doing is we're replacing those beliefs once they, their memory is healed with the new positive.

And something like phobias can be that one session can completely change that phobia. So things like that are a little bit more involved, which will involve more than one belief, such as procrastination, confidence, those things, obviously because there's more than one belief attached. We need more than one session or.

They would need my navigation which is.

More in depth again. So it's it. Yeah, it's it's fascinating. I discovered it. It's a very new modality. And I discovered it.

Two 2 1/2 years ago and as soon as I heard it, I trained in it straight away, so I was one of the first people to be trained in it. It's a modality developed by a lady called Jessica Cunningham. And yeah, haven't looked back since I use it in it's it's replaced everything else that I use in my.

Coaching.

Is.

Is it?

Is it kind of a quicker way to get to the root of the problem like it used to be? We do therapy for hours and hours over years and years and and then maybe possibly we'd find out what that root cause was and it was always your.

Yes, so.

Parents.

Can save you all that money and tell you that's what.

The problem was.

Yeah.

If in doubt, yeah.

It's not that they're not necessarily. I think now we're we're beginning to understand that you know we we have these stories and it was convenient to blame it on your mother years ago. But the reality is that we need to take responsibility for the things that we're believing, the things that we're allowing to run our lives.

Yeah.

Even if it's just in the background, it's programming.

We we formed those opinions, we formed those thoughts. Mother didn't come along and say you have to believe this or I'm doing this to you for your own good.

She probably was doing it for our own good, trying to protect us in some way or another, but, you know, even a bad mother isn't.

Isn't purposefully. I'm unless they're really sick trying to injure their child. But we do things because we're young as parents primarily. And and if you take responsibility for for the the thoughts that you've formed and the.

Yeah.

Whatever. Whatever you're doing in your subconscious.

Recognizing it starts with recognizing that you did this, you can fix it.

But you did it. You have all the power.

We do absolutely and we we have to remember as well as our parents and.

Us as parents.

Everybody's only ever doing what they feel that they can do their best they can do at the time, everybody's just human. And so you're, I mean, we do, we have to take responsibility for ourselves and our thoughts are not a lot of people go through.

Like thinking their.

Thoughts are reality. They're not their fiction. They're made-up.

By ourselves and one person's reality can be very different from someone else's. That's gone through the same experiences. So we absolutely do have to take responsibility for our mindset and the way that we're thinking.

Because it is too too easy to blame.

It on someone else or.

Parents or we do have that choice and absolutely and.

That's quite freeing.

Really to think of it like that.

Yeah.

I think Marissa Peers is the one that says tell yourself a better lie because they're all lies. Everything that you say in your head, you're making up that two people can have the exact same experience and they will both walk away from it.

And tell the story differently. It's like the the blind man and the elephant.

You know it, it just we we don't. None of us perceives everything exactly the same. So if you make up a different story about the meaning that we give it because that's really what we remember is the meaning that we've attached to whatever the experience.

Does.

You can always change that meaning and you in that way you change history really, and you changed the impact that that event has on the people that were involved in the event also because as you remember it differently, you helped them remember it differently or they can feel different about it.

So something changed history.

Absolutely it has.

A A ricochet.

Effect. Absolutely. And and it's it. It's so true that you know, in that moment you do have that choice and and also that if we do start doing that as parents, then our children learn that we, you know, they see us doing that. You know we're OK you know about admitting our mistakes and thinking. OK so how could I have done that.

Differently or how can I do that differently next time is the most important thing.

Because we're all. We're all just as we go through life, we're learning. We're experiencing. We never actually get to the perfect end product. We're we're always, you know, on that journey. So yeah, it it's so important that we do that. And even if you don't do any other sort of mindset work, one of the questions that you can ask yourself in.

A certain situation.

OK, so how could I read that differently? How could I see that differently? How could I, you know, just make asking yourself those questions really helps.

And how can I feel about that differently if I if if?

I'm feeling and I'm not saying to deny your feelings about things, but if you experience something and you have a feeling.

That.

Doesn't feel good to you.

Then maybe you need to look at it and and think how can I have this experience?

Means something that's more empowering for me.

Yes.

It doesn't mean that it has to suddenly be a good experience, but there's something good about everything that you experience.

There may be bad, but if you attach to the bad stuff, you're just going to find more evidence about the bad stuff your brain wants to prove you right, so you may as well pick the little tiny thing. Little tiny thing, because sometimes that's all you can hang on to. That's that little tiny thing that was really good.

Yeah.

At the.

Variants and then your brain will help you fill in the rest, but you gotta help it.

Yep.

And then what you're doing because you're looking for that little tiny little silver lining you're you're creating new neural pathways in your brain. And as your brain starts to use those new pathways, it becomes easier. And then before you know it, throughout your day, you're starting to.

Look for those.

Little tiny glimmers of hope and. And so your life starts to feel different. So from one small thing.

Yeah.

So true.

It's it's a life changing skill. If you can develop it and if you can teach your kids or your grandkids this skill.

They're going to have phenomenal lives.

Absolutely. And it really is just little things, just little ways of of doing things differently and and just simple things like having a little gratitude practice, you know, three things at the end of the day that I'm grateful for and even if it was a really bad day, there's.

Always something there's.

That nice cup of coffee in the morning or, you know, whatever it happened to be. Someone smiled at me. You know, anything but there's always something that we can write down at the end of the day.

Something that we.

Were grateful for, which is a really good practice to get into something that helps you start to look for those positives.

In your life.

And when you're having a really bad day, the thing that.

I homeschooled three of my kids and and a couple of them would be having a terrible, bad, horrible, no good, very bad day. Skype comes from a book.

Alexander's terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. So we love that around here. But when having those kinds of days, if you sit down and you write out 50 things that you're grateful for, I don't care if it's your fingernails and your eyelashes. Put it down on the paper. You have them.

OK. Yes, yes.

Translate.

Yeah, exactly. There's always something.

Isn't that and and it's really it's a great thing to train your kids to do as well. It's something that I've done with my daughters. Now she's in her teens. She's.

Kind of.

Left it behind, but I know that it's in there and I know that as she gets older, it'll settle. Maybe come back, you know. Oh, I know. I'll stop doing that again. That's my hope.

You know, you give them tools and and they do reuse them, they they surface back around.

Interesting times I have. I have one son. I gave him a book.

They do.

And.

It was Robert kiyosaki's.

Rich Dad, poor dad. And he read that book and now he's close to 40 and he has put it into action.

And I know it was that book because he told me he read the book many years ago, and then I I can see his life today.

Based on something that I gave him a long time ago, just I think you would enjoy this book. Read it.

Wow, that's a gift.

Isn't it? Yeah. Wonderful.

I I.

Thank Robert for writing the book. All I had to do was give it to him and and he read it. He did all the.

Work.

And he he just was able to to take something and I and I only bring this up as an example for, you know, the little things that you do as a parent early on really does have.

Yes.

Of.

Huge impact later in life for your kids.

Absolutely it does. It does and and that you know, you give them those little seeds and then you know later on they it's up to them, you know, whether they fly with it or not. But generally if you've been printed it in there when my daughter was young, I I've had a meditate meditation practice for many years and she used to have a corner.

In her wardrobe that she said was her meditation area when she was very little.

Which I thought was lovely and that obviously that's long since gone now, but I know it's there. I know, you know, it's a practice that she's got in her tool belt, you know, to to use later. But yeah, all these little things you sow the seeds.

Yeah, and. And then you just wait and watch it's it's garden time in my neighborhood.

Love to throw seeds out in my garden and then I never mark them and I'm not very.

Precise when I plant stuff I have like areas.

Where some vegetables will go and I'm always. I'm always surprised when they come up and they're the little tiny leaves and I'm like, oh, I wonder what those are going to be. I think that's this. And I forgot what the other four things like there are.

Yes.

Wonderful.

So I think I'm a I'm a.

Gardener as well, and I love.

My garden. So yeah, it's it's really exciting when these things start to come up.

We have the same here.

Yeah. And you never quite remember what they were. But you know what? That doesn't matter. It's all good.

Yeah, it's just so fun. And and then sometimes you get stuff that we call it volunteer that comes from years past, seeds that you put down and you forgot about, and then suddenly you've got this plant that you never even expected.

I I just love it.

Yeah, I think that's the lovely, lovely metaphor for life, isn't it?

Really lovely, yeah.

It is.

Yeah.

I've learned so much in the garden. The garden. It was like my first life coach.

Yes. Oh, yeah. There's a lot to be learned from that about nurturing and.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well, your mind.

Meeting.

These are like thoughts.

Is you? It's like you know you. You're.

Weeding your mind. A lot of the time, aren't you? You're you know, you're

Putting your mind onto the more positives and weeding out the more negatives, and yeah, there's an awful lot to be compared to gardening.

Growing.

Yeah, yeah, I love that. So I know you offer a free anxiety SOS gift on your website. You want to talk a little bit about that?

Thank you.

Like.

Yeah. So on my website I have a free anxiety SOS which is downloadable. It's a video of me bringing various techniques that you can just bring into daily life just to just to.

Feel a little calmer on.

A daily basis and and there's there's.

A few techniques on there. Some may resonate more, some less so. It's up to you to choose which ones that you want to take or to choose all of them.

To take into.

Daily life. But that's free. It's a free.

Resource if anybody wants to download it.

Liz Liz. Murray, coaching.com.

Thank you for that. And we will make sure we put that in the show notes and you can find that on the home page, if you Scroll down just.

A little bit.

Sure. Yeah. Right there. It's near the bottom of the homepage and I also have a a contact page on there and also if anybody wants to discuss any, any, my program or anything, there's also the chance to have.

A a free.

Conversation with myself. You can book that in as well.

If that's something.

That someone wishes to do.

That is awesome. I'm going to ask you one other question and it has to do with anxiety because I know anxiety is a really prevalent.

Sure.

And.

In the world right now.

Why do you think that is?

I think there's a number of reasons for that at the moment. I think it's because we have a very instant society, so I think that people are expected to do things instantly, whereas years ago because we didn't have the technology we have, you didn't.

Have those demand.

Once.

I think we're always reachable now, whereas before you'd go home, people can't get you unless you answer the phone or or whatever. And I just think as well today's we have more pressures from every angle. Now there's there's a lot of comparison itis from people.

There's, you know, which obviously comes from social media, but I'm not going to. But that social media's not all bad, but there's obviously things that form, you know, press.

Just from it. So I just think that life is faster now and and with it comes an awful lot of pressure. And I just would love people to be themselves more rather than trying to conform to what it is that we feel that.

Hey.

We should be.

Whatever role that might be. So it's just, yeah, about because after all, at the end of the day, our our life is is so short. We have to enjoy it. We have to enjoy the journey and and not constantly be trying to strive to be something else or be somewhere else.

Yeah.

Thank you for that. I'm always interested in and what people's opinions about that are because like I said, I I find that there are so many people that are anxious these days and.

Thank you.

I think as midlife women, you can fall into the.

I don't care what anybody thinks category or there's the.

I should be something else by this point category and I yes.

Yes.

For me personally, I think when when you start feeling anxious about things that you are probably in that I should be category and no, you really shouldn't be any.

Yes.

Thing.

Absolutely.

You should just be.

Yeah, it's. It's making those judgments on yourself and and feeling that you should be somewhere else or should be and should is actually a word that I try and keep out of my vocabulary. It's something I consciously when I hear myself saying the word should I think no, I replace it with could or I replace it with something else.

Because I think the way we talk to ourselves, we talk to ourselves in such a harsh way, in a way that we probably would never talk to anybody else, especially midnight life. Women do this make these judgments on ourselves. And I think it's really important to.

Be aware of.

That and just be a little bit more accepting of where we are and how we're feeling.

And it's OK to have a bad day too.

However, we are it's it's OK.

Yeah.

For sure. So I've really enjoyed this conversation. What's the one thing that you hope the audience takes away from our conversation today?

I think I would love really for people.

To take away that.

It's OK to want more when you reach mid life, especially as the mid life woman. It's OK, you know you don't have to settle and.

Yes, we put other people we've spent often spent many years putting other people's needs first, but it's actually.

OK to want.

More and it it's don't feel guilty for that because we can and it's not too late. You absolutely can change and you absolutely can create a new.

Life for yourself.

Whatever your situation, it's possible.

I love that. Thank you so much for joining me.

Thank you. Thanks.