October 16, 2022 • 62 mins
Liz is an Executive Performance Coach, who specialises in neuropsychotherapy. She's on the show today to help us all increase our cognitive awareness so that we can live more of the life we want.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Arwen Bardsley (00:00):
All right.
Welcome, everybody. Welcome backto another episode. I'm really
delighted today to haveElizabeth Louis as my guest,
Liz, as I'm going to call herbecause that sounds a lot more
friendly to me. Liz is anexecutive performance coach who
specializes inneuropsychotherapy. Liz had a
traumatic childhood that shedisregarded for many years as an
(00:22):
adult and went off intotelevision production as a
career. But it was whilstfilming a wildlife documentary
off the coast of South Africathat Liz realized the truth
about her childhood and decidedto heal herself. And to help
herself become the best personthat she could be. Two
(00:45):
postgraduate psychology degreeslater, Liz now works with Type A
leaders to help them increasetheir cognitive awareness to
advance their careers andthemselves. She also hosts
mental health boot camps, onlinecourses, and mental health
podcast, a blog and lots more.
(01:07):
So there is so much we can getinto with that, Liz, I do just
like to start with a bit ofbackground about you in terms of
why you are where you are now.
And you know, your what, whatthe origins of you are that if
we can go into a bit more detailfrom what I've just said, and
(01:30):
especially, I would love toknow, about this realization
that you had whilst filming thewildlife documentary, how did
that come about? That would bewonderful.
Liz Louis (01:44):
Yes, yes. Well, thank you for such a beautiful
introductory too, I'll startbackwards, because the
realization and the why kind ofgo together to a degree. I
laugh, because I was that Imoved out when I was 16. And
from 16, until probably 27-28, Imoved every two weeks to nine
(02:06):
months. And so I kind of havethis joke of I was just like
running away from my lifeproblems. And I'm moved What,
like 10,000 miles away to SouthAfrica, thinking, I guess I
could escape my problems to adegree you can't they, they
follow you. They definitelyfollow you. And it was there in
South Africa, as I was listeningto my mates. And my peers in the
(02:28):
production camp, just talk abouttheir childhood, because a lot
of us were really young. And Iwas like, Holy crap, my
childhood was not normal, andwas super toxic and traumatic,
because you don't know what youdon't know. And so I kind of
joke and I say God, like rippedthe curtain from my psyche. He
was like, You're gonna deal withthis stuff. 10,000 miles away
right here right now. And sothat's when I realized, like, I
(02:52):
don't want to have the traumathat I've had, I want to get
over it. And so I startedtherapy again. But everyone was
just so like amazed to mychildhood because my brother is
a psychopath and tried killingme my whole life. I'm not
kidding when I say that. And Iwas like, Cool. My childhood was
traumatic. I don't need someoneto confirm that I now see that I
want to know how to get freefrom the complex PTSD that I
(03:14):
ended up being diagnosed with. Iwant to know how to like break
free from my past and live inthe present and create a better
future and no therapist couldtell me how to do that. And I
went to a handful, and I'd beenin therapy since I was 11. And I
just decided as egotistical asit sounds, I'll just get my own
degree in psychology and fixmyself since nobody knows how to
(03:37):
do it. And then one thing led toanother and I started learning
about neuroplasticity, and thebrain and neuroscience, and
psychology. And I just used meas a guinea pig. And I quickly
started to transform myself in2017, I had no immune system.
They told me to go and live inlike a bubble, like bubble boy
from and I was like no that'snot happening. And within like,
(04:01):
I think four or five months, Iwalked out of an autoimmune
disease. I had a better immuneimmune system, just from doing
neurological psychological workin my in my mind and just
implementing and transforming.
Yeah, it was it was insane. Imean, there was definitely a lot
of hard days where, you know,thank goodness for a support
system and a puppy dog thatloves you.
Arwen Bardsley (04:23):
Yeah, absolutely. And thank goodness,
you got a good immune systembefore we had a global pandemic
as well.
Liz Louis (04:30):
Yes, yeah, I know timing can be can be one thing
for sure. And then it was funnybecause in grad school for my
first degree, I ended up justbeing naturally good, because my
specialty was in my subspecialtywas coaching psychology. So I
ended up being good as a coachand my professors just
automatically gave me some oftheir overflow to work with. So
(04:51):
I never intended to do this fora living. It just kind of fell
that way. And I love it so much.
I love reading. I love learningabout it, that it's just huge
passion. And I just believe youcan make the impossible possible
because I've seen it. And wehear stories that do it. And at
the end of the day, faith andfear are equal and substance. So
let's give it all the faith andnone of the fear.
Arwen Bardsley (05:11):
Oh, I love that.
And so before that, how did youWhy television as well, I'm just
curious, got nothing to do withthis interview. But I just
wondered how you got into that?
Liz Louis (05:24):
Yeah, for sure. Um, so I grew up with full house.
And I didn't understand why MaryKate and Ashley gotta start
working. And I come in. So I'vealways kind of had an
entreprenuer mind. I had myfirst business when I was six,
and then 10, and then 13, and soforth. And when I was 15, I
became a professional model. Andthen I went a little bit behind
(05:46):
the camera. I just always lovedacting. So originally, it was
always for acting and being infront. But you know, people
treat you like crap. Sometimeswhen you're in front of the
camera, and there's a lot ofmisogynistic people out there.
And so I kind of got tired ofit. And I didn't, I need to
challenge personally. So then Idecided, well, I'll just go
behind the camera, because I hadlike, I mean, I started doing
(06:08):
professional theater training atlike, eight years old. And so I
was like, well, I'll just takewhat I know. And I'll put it in
the back. But by the time I leftproduction, I just didn't like
how America was doing things inHollywood. Personally, I just, I
thought that there was a lot ofcorruption. And I didn't want to
(06:29):
partake in it. I mean, like, Ithink 75% of television shows
today, show violence and onlyand 60% of those 75% violent
shows don't show anyconsequences for the actions.
And yet we're like, why do wehave a violence issue in
America? I'm like, well, thereyou have it, dudes.
Arwen Bardsley (06:48):
Yeah, okay. Oh, interesting. Thank you for that
little aside. So I really needto start with the question about
what is neuro psychotherapy,obviously, how does it different
differ from standard therapy.
And you know, and you'vementioned that you're, you just
got a natural ability atcoaching and counseling people.
(07:12):
So I'm just wondering if you cantell us a bit about what your
approach is in therapeuticsetting that makes you
different,
Liz Louis (07:22):
for sure, for sure.
So and I'm going to say this invery simplistic terms, too. So
there's always the exception tothe rule. So traditional
therapists typically focus onyour emotions and your feelings.
Where as a neuro psychotherapistis in the psychotherapy setting
is going to focus on youremotions and your feelings, but
also your brain behaviorconnection. And so when I have a
(07:42):
client, I listen very carefullyto the words that they're saying
and how they're thinking,because actually will tell me
what parts of their brain areoverdeveloped or under
poverished. And so I want tohelp them have a healthy
neurology because that can leadto a healthier psychology. It's
not everything, but it's part ofit. And so it just helps me
figure out where we need to,honestly, I'll say it this way,
(08:04):
it helps me find their, theircore root issue at a faster
level. Because I know what weneed to do. For instance, if
you're speaking a lot of fearbased language, then I know most
likely you're living in yourlimbic system. And there's just
certain words that over theyears of doing this, that kind
of tell me what you most likelystruggle with. For instance, if
you have I think it's I'm gonnaget this confused right now. I
(08:25):
think it's your, when your rightside of your prefrontal cortex
is over developed might be itmight be left, for some reason
I'm drawing a blank, thattypically means you have more of
avoidance behavior, which meansyou're going to struggle more
with depression. And so humansneed goals, but we need positive
goals. So then it's like, Okay,let me help you feed those
neurons on the opposite side. Sowe can have that ability to have
(08:45):
more of a balanced healthypsychology. And it's really, I
don't know how it is inAustralia, but in America, it's
disgusting. What therapistslearn in grad school, they don't
learn enough to really be anadequate therapist. It's, it
breaks my little heart, to becompletely honest. But there's
things that a therapist can doif they're, if they're trained
(09:06):
in the brain. And if they alsoare passionate, and they can do
the research themselves of we'rejust having a conversation with
a client, you'll actually startto rewire their brain clients
not going to know it sounds likeI'm brainwashing them. I don't
mean it in a negative sense. Butit's it's the quicker we can
create new neural connectionsand start to stop starve or
block the old neurons, thefaster we're gonna get that
transformation. And that's wheremy clients get transformation
(09:28):
within about three sessions.
Arwen Bardsley (09:31):
Wow, that's so quick.
Liz Louis (09:34):
Right? Right. You just go right to the A lot of
people like to deal withsymptoms when you've got to go
to the core issue.
Arwen Bardsley (09:40):
Yep. Yeah. And that is the same in any health
or wellness, you know, settingisn't it? It's and
Unfortunately, our whole cultureand society and we are the same
as America in this way is, youknow, we all want a magic pill
or want to just be able to youYou know, take that magic pill
(10:01):
or you know, it's notnecessarily a pill, but you
know, I just want to be able todo one session, and then I'm
better. And, you know, ifyou've, if you've been dealing
with something, or something'shad an impact on you for the
whole of your life, and youcannot expect that it's just
going to take, you know, onelittle thing, one little pill,
one little, whatever, andeverything will be different.
(10:23):
But if you're getting to theroot cause of that, then you
can, you know, cut it off,destroy it, replace it at that,
at that level.
Liz Louis (10:33):
Exactly, exactly.
It's, you know, and it's effortat the end of the day, we just
have to hone in our effort andjust kind of let go the outcome
sometimes.
Arwen Bardsley (10:42):
Yeah. So in that situation, where you've worked
out that somebody is workingfrom a place of I can't remember
what you just said, fear or youknow, they need positive goals.
So can you just like talk usthrough an example of what a
(11:03):
scenario might be?
Liz Louis (11:04):
Yeah, I'll just use myself for some of this not for
one of them. So there'ssomething called a limbic loop.
So depending on when you've hadtrauma, your brain can be wired
differently, because untilyou're about 11, you can't think
abstract and your brain doesn'tfully mature until age 25. So
there's lots of time we have asyoung ones that unfortunately
(11:26):
can scar us and cause obstaclesfor our future. My father died
right after my seventh birthday.
And then most of my familyexcept for my mom, and my
brother died afterwards, rightafter my dad died, I was going
to funeral that every week, thenit went to every month. And then
every year, I mean, it was likedeath, death, death, death
death. Now, my dad had me whenhe was 61 years old. So it might
be important to understand thatmuch of my family was older too.
(11:48):
Not that it matters when you'reseven, but just for context. And
when my dad died, my brotherstarted becoming really violent
and abusive towards me, he waskind of like my protector. So
what we want to have happen isprefrontal cortex needs to wire
to your limbic system.
Unfortunately, because I wasconstantly experiencing
(12:13):
hardship, you could say orsuffering at such a young age,
my brain was so wired the limbicsystem, the prefrontal cortex.
And what that means is thatyou're always in a fight,
flight, or freeze or fine typeof mentality. So I lived in my
closet as a little girl, becauseit was like the safest place for
me. And I could listen for whenthe like insanity of my brother
(12:33):
was going to come about. And sowhen I moved out at 16, I was
like the slightest little noise.
I was like, Where do I need togo? Where do I need to hide?
Right? So I was always reallyvigilant, like hyper vigilant,
could hear conversations acrossthe hall was always on edge just
could not get out of it. And sothat limbic loop is called. So a
limbic loop is kind of whereyou're constantly on rumination,
(12:54):
right? You're always thinkingabout those past events, you
can't let them go. They're kindof injuring your psyche, even at
an unconscious level. So youmight not be always consciously
aware, but you're sweating alot. You're anxious, you're
right, there's somaticsensations that we can have. And
this was actually what wasdestroying my immune system,
because fear is the number onekiller at the end of the day. I
mean, it's insane. What fear cando. And so when I started to
(13:18):
learn about the limbic system,and the thing called a limbic
loop, where you're just stuck inthis fight or flight freeze,
because your limbic system iswhat codes all the information,
if you will, that comes intoyour mind. I learned techniques,
and they're so simplistic, thatit feels like they wouldn't
work. They're so simplistic tohelp me get out of that limbic
system so I could breathe, andso my anxiety could go down.
(13:40):
Because what people forget isthinking actually changes your
neurology. It's crazy, right?
And so the, the the key toneuroplasticity is repetition,
changing your vocabulary, andliterally thinking new things at
the end of the day, which is alittle bit easier said than
done. But what I would do is Iwould have to start to become
(14:02):
really conscious. For instance,if I heard a noise, or even
perfume, perfume used to likemake me have a sore throat. So
multiple chemical sensitivity isvery normal, when you have
limited or trauma issues.
And so like perfume would giveme a sore throat and I remember
one day, I was in a yoga class,and I was like, Okay, I'm gonna
stay here and just like almostlike exposure therapy with the
(14:23):
perfume. But then you do thiswhere you say, hey, brain,
you're sending me falseinformation. The perfume is not
impacting me, I'm safe, and I'mhealthy. And I'm good. I'm doing
things differently, right? Andyou just say that over and over.
Sometimes it's like everynanosecond because your
amygdala, when it feels a threatcan override everything within a
nanosecond. I mean, youramygdala is really fast to get
(14:45):
on top of things. So sometimesit's you catch it and you work
backwards. And if you've everbeen in a conversation where
there's been like a loud boom orsomething, you kind of forget
what you were talking about. Andonce you realize everything was
safe, that's kind of what you'redoing it same with chiropractic
right it's interrupt patterns,interrupt. patterns, interrupt
patterns, interrupt patterns,that's kind of the key. So you
can tie in like physiology inthe sense of snapping or hugging
(15:06):
yourself, just to kind of bringin an additional support system.
Because when you can bring youremotions, your physiology and
your psychology together,typically change happens at a
faster rate. And so it's justchanging the way you think, to
be more of what you want to seeat the end of the day, because
going back to faith and fear arekind of equal in substance. When
we reject what we don't want tosee, that's fear, when we
(15:26):
protect what we do want to see,that's faith, if you will. And
so it's constantly changing thedialogue and reminding yourself,
you're safe. Assuming you'retruly in a place where you're
safe. Obviously, if you're not,it's not going to work. But
that's just one technique.
Another technique going to theavoidance versus so we, you
either are going to createavoidant goals or you're going
to create positive goals. Peoplewho are going to create avoidant
(15:48):
goals are going to tell me a lotof what they don't like, they're
going to speak a lot ofnegativity, a lot of noes. A lot
of not a lot of I can't type ofthings. And so an example of
this would be for an avoidantgoal would be I'm moving to the
country to get away from thenoise, right, you're motivated
by what you don't want to dealwith a positive goal would be,
I'm moving to the country forpeace and quiet. So it's a
(16:10):
shift. And it sounds like I'msplitting hairs. But it's the
difference between a healthy andunhealthy psychology. It's also
the difference from pessimismand optimism, which are basic
things we need. Optimism is whatwe need to have if we're going
to encourage our hope, andcontinue to grow. And so those
are just two very simpleexamples of what I was sharing
there.
Arwen Bardsley (16:32):
And yeah, so it's really about the language
in a way, isn't it that you'reusing? And so when you're saying
this stuff, are you, you know,do you need to be saying it out
loud? Or is it just repeating itin your mind silently?
Liz Louis (16:48):
That's gonna be a little bit dependent on the
person. This is where I say,bring your unique self to the
table. The first thing is yougot to be willing, you got to
have an open mind, to think andsee things differently and try
things differently. When you canI say do it out loud, because
it's something really powerfulif you're like, inner ear,
hearing your own voice. But atthe same time, like if you're in
(17:08):
the middle of a work meeting, orin your kids school play, you
can't be like, Hey, Brian, I'msafe. I'm safe, like, right, you
can't do that. And so there'sthings that like you have to be
willing to manipulate and kindof recalibrate when the moment
arises. I mean, I should havedied from an eating disorder.
And I remember a few years ago,I was on a walk with my husband.
(17:30):
And it sounds so silly, but it'snormal for people who've
struggled with eating disorders,my like, my sports bra was so
tight and so uncomfortable. Itwas making me feel fat, as silly
as that sounds. And I justremember under my breath in the
middle of a conversation withhim, I was like, Hey, pay body,
hey, brain, you're safe, you'resending me false information.
Everything is okay, I'm not fat,I'm good. I'm thin, I'm working
(17:53):
out I'm doing the things I needto do. And it's, it's almost
like parenting that inner childinside of you. Because your
brain can send you falseinformation. This is why we
cannot fully trust our feelings,unfortunately.
Arwen Bardsley (18:05):
And yeah, it's so with the finger snapping? Is
there something that you can doinstead of that, that, you know,
like, if you are in your kidsschool play that it's not going
to be. So obvious, there areother sorts of physical things
you can do.
Liz Louis (18:24):
For sure. And you don't even have to snap where
you like make a sound too. Butthis is where again, bring your
unique, unique personality toit. Some people like to touch
their hearts, some people kindof like to like cross their arms
and like hold themselves to adegree. You could take steps
backwards, you could stay takesteps forward, sideways. I mean,
it's just any any motion thatcould help you create a more of
(18:46):
a disturbance in that pattern,if that makes sense. So we think
in association, so we're justtrying to create more of
association. So like when youget this we go this way versus
going that old way if that makessense.
Arwen Bardsley (18:57):
Right? Okay.
Okay. Okay. Yeah, that makessense. So, yeah, I read a
statistic on your website, whichI have heard before that we
think about 95% the same thingsevery day. And then 80% of our
thoughts are negative, which isjust incredible. Why is it that
our brains develop like this?
(19:24):
And and how can we useneuroplasticity to our advantage
to try and reduce that 95%? Isit possible to do that?
Liz Louis (19:34):
Oh, yeah, for sure.
And I actually read an article afew weeks ago that this blows my
mind. You can have one to 99% ofyour thoughts being negative,
like Oh, my goodness, that'sinsane. No, break that right
now. You know, neuroscience isstill a very new science.
Believe it or not, the brain isextremely complex. We know that
(19:54):
thoughts typically are Aresparked due to external stuff.
But that external thing you seecan spark an unconscious memory
at the end of the day. Andhumans are creatures of habits
at the end of the day, we don'twant to admit that. Just like we
have a default mode to thegrocery store. Typically, the
default mode of thinking, andperspective is something that we
(20:16):
can't clearly define inpsychology, because however you
make meaning out of life, isgoing to be influenced on how
you think especially those corebeliefs if we use the cognitive
behavior therapy model. So Idon't fully know why we are this
way, I will do more research onthat to learn to be completely
honest. Can you change?
(20:39):
Absolutely, one thing Iencourage people to do is get
clear on what do you want tothink I like to tell people to
have like seven buckets ofthinking. And what I would do is
like, is this thought loving? Isit true? Is it worthy of praise?
Is it encouraging and kind, Iwould just kind of, I wanted to
always be that person. When youwere in my space, you just felt
(20:59):
like love coming from me. Andacceptance and psychological
safety, for sure. And so Icreated buckets that kind of
honored those that reality thatI was trying to do. And I
remember I would go on walks orI'd be thinking, I'd be like,
ooh, does that thought, honorany of these buckets? If not,
you got to get out of here. Andunfortunately, a lot of people
(21:22):
are mindless with theirthinking, like, I don't know if
you've done this, but I'll admitthat I've done this, I used to
like drive down the road andlike killing off my whole family
in my mind. And I'm like, howwould I survive? What would I
do? You know, like, kind ofcreating worst case scenario for
fun. And I stopped doing that,you know, and it's just like
what check in what are youthinking, mindful? Being
(21:43):
leveraging mindfulness with yourthoughts is so important, you
have to start to grow awareness?
And what are you thinking? Is itgoing to resonate to what you
want? Because we've proven inneuroscience, and the funniest
thing to me is, most religionssay the same thing too is, you
work to create your mostdominant thought. So if you
don't like your life, yourthoughts got you there at the
end of the day, I mean, yes,there's the exception to the
(22:04):
rule of No, you can't controlwhere you're born, what color
you are, or what have you. Butat the end of the day, where you
are currently, your thoughtsmost likely got you there to a
degree. So I tell people,especially my clients, when they
first come see me, write aboutyour ideal self, remove all
constraints, time, money skills,write it in the present tense,
and read it every single day,because what we found, and this,
again, shows you the power ofyour thoughts is if you
(22:26):
intentionally read over how youwant your life to be what you
want to think about, and you dothat for an hour a day,
accumulatively for 180 daysstraight, so six months, by the
end of that 180 days, you'll be90% there or have more clarity
on the next steps to continue toget there because some of the
stuffs obviously gonna be alittle complicated. And it's
insane just from thinking thatmost people focus on what they
(22:49):
don't want versus what they dowant. Which is why, you know, I
think we've personally positivepositive thinking that's toxic.
I don't even want to rememberwhat is called toxic positive
thinking or something annoys mebecause I'm like, You can't
blame a person for being overlypositive. I mean, perspectives
perspective, we can't really sayit's right or wrong. It seems
(23:11):
like there's a lot of pessimistswho've gotten upset at the
positive thinking at the end ofthe day.
Arwen Bardsley (23:19):
Well, it sounds like we're all you know,
pessimists. By nature, for somereason that we need to find it.
I mean, I guess it's all comesback to, you know, caveman days
of, we kind of were in so muchmore physical danger, then. Not
everyone, but a lot of us arethese days, and the brain just
(23:39):
developed from that place of,you know, checking that
everything's okay constantly,and fearing everything, because
we didn't know where the nextsaber toothed Tiger might come
around the corner from.
Liz Louis (23:53):
Well, interestingly enough, too, we're actually
wired for love. That's why itfeels good. That's our default
way. It's being wired for love.
And if you kind of think aboutin this perspective, if we were
wired for fear, it would feelbetter. And there's two types of
fear. I like to tell people it'slike the God given fear, like
the saber toothed Tiger, versusthe you know, your manufacturing
(24:14):
the fear, because it's notreally there. But it's, it's
being projected, based off ofyour past if you if you will.
One question I like to tellpeople which might be beneficial
here is like if I could stripaway all your fear, all the
pain, all the negativity, allthe rejection, all the shame,
all the guilt, every bad thingthat impacted you, who would you
(24:35):
be?
Arwen Bardsley (24:39):
Yeah, that's a really good question, isn't it?
And so just going back to whatyou said before about, so then,
therefore, if you write downwill, you know, who do I want to
be write some piece about? Thisis who I would be if I had no
constraints. And you mentionedreading that for an hour a day
and I'm like, well nobody'sgoing to do that. So what what
(25:02):
would you say is the, you know,manageable way to do that kind
of thing.
Liz Louis (25:07):
Yes, associations create associations to help you
a remember when to do it.
Because you have time, it's justare you willing to do it and it
can be 15 minutes here, fiveminutes, they're two minutes,
they're three minutes, they'relike, just find a way. One thing
that I did and still do is Ilike to exercise. So I would do
it when I was exercising,Labyrinth walks are a great time
(25:29):
to do it. Because walks justnaturally create increased
creativity. And so it's aperfect time for you to think on
those things as well. And alsobring in that visualization
piece. And labyrinth walks arewhere you just don't have to pay
attention to your path, becauseit's so common sense to you. So
if you don't have an actuallabyrinth, just find a path in
your neighborhood, memorize it,don't think about it. I used to
(25:51):
write it on notecards, like fiveof them that I really wanted to
like Master and memorize becauseit might take some time to
memorize your list too. Andlike, if I was in a doctor's
office waiting, I would read it,then if I was in the carpool
line, I'd read it then I wouldrecord myself saying them all
and I would play it as I woulddrive to a stop. So it was all
(26:11):
like how can I quickly programmy brain? Because it is true. I
mean to everything we do ashumans, we have to learn we, we
have to be taught these things.
So find your way of learning andpay attention to it. I will tell
you in the mornings prayer isreally important to me
personally. So in the mornings,I kind of bring it into my
(26:33):
prayer time of just thanking myGod for all that he's bringing
me and you know, letting it go,because kind of going back to
just how fear works. You know,when we're constantly in fear
it's because we're really livingin the future in the past, and
we're missing the present. Ifyou can learn how to hone your
focus to be in the present,because it's the only time you
(26:55):
exist at the end of the day.
It's amazing the amount ofstress that just naturally falls
off of you. Of course it is youhave to practice this because
it's it's a focus you have tolearn and practice. But that
would even be a great time ofjust like, Okay, I'm going to
take five minutes of mindfulmeditation and just recite and
envision my list and anytime aworry or the future or the past
(27:16):
comes into mind. I'm just gonnalet it go like a gray cloud.
Arwen Bardsley (27:23):
And, but what if what's coming to me is, yeah,
I'm reading this list, or I'mlistening to this list if I've
recorded it. And I reckon I'mstill gonna get those little
monkey mind thoughts coming andgoing. No, that's not that's
rubbish. Don't be silly. So whatdo you do about that?
Liz Louis (27:43):
That's brilliant. I'm so happy. You said that. That is
a great opportunity then to puton the Sherlock Holmes mindset I
like to say, which is just beingthat detective if you're not
familiar with Sherlock Holmes,and just being very curious and
looking more at data and the bigpicture versus the, that small
little weed, if you will, andexploring, okay, what's making
me not believe this is possible,because maybe it's your low self
(28:06):
esteem coming to the table,great, here's an opportunity for
you to start being intentionalabout working on your self
esteem, go get a coach, go get abest friend, go get a therapist,
go get a book, whatever youneed, go get it and be willing
to do it. Or maybe it's gonnatake some time to build up your
faith. Maybe you really believeyou could have that in the in
the, like, 25 years from now.
But you don't think it'spossible right now? Well, are
(28:27):
you willing to maybe learn theskills? Or do the things that
are in your control now to togrow there? Do you really want
it? Do you want it for vainreasons? I mean, I have a lot of
clients who just want to be abillionaire, just to flick off a
person who hurt them in firstgrade. I mean, sorry, that's
being vain. Get over yourself.
Arwen Bardsley (28:44):
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah. Love it. And anotherquestion that I had was, I know,
I've heard before that listeningto things like right before
you're going to sleep. So if yourecorded your voice saying all
this stuff, and you listen to itright before you went to sleep,
that that's a really powerfultime for your brain to receive
information. Is that true?
Liz Louis (29:08):
It is, and I'm so happy you said that because
actually forgot this fun fact.
So we think in two differentways sensory based thinking and
language based thinking.
Language Based is what you and Iare doing right now by verbally
talking. An example of sensorybased thinking is when you like
slam on brakes, because you seea red light or a child across
the street, right? You don't,you don't go there. Hey, Liz,
you see a child, you shouldmaybe slow down, right? You just
(29:30):
do it right before you're evenaware. And your sensory based
thinking is really connected toyour unconscious mind. And it's
four times faster than yourconscious mind. And it never
shuts off. And so when you reador study right before you go to
bed, you're still chewing on itas you're sleeping because
you've actually kind of put itmore in your sensory based
thinking. It's like if you'veever woken in the middle of the
(29:52):
night and you're like, oh, Ihave that idea now or Oh, I get
it. It's because your sensorybased thinking was still working
as you were Sleeping, or ifyou've ever like woken up and
you're like, Oh, now Iunderstand why I was upset about
whatever happened yesterday,it's because your brain was
still working on it at the endof the day. And the cool thing
to hear is when you have a cleargoal, and you're really putting
(30:16):
effort to that goal, whateveryou're spending your time and
infusing at night, you're justgoing to help kind of encourage
getting that goal by just kindof training your reticular
activity system, which brings inour stimuli, or I'm sorry, which
highlights whatever we tell it,because it's just too much
stimuli in the world. And sothere's so much benefit of doing
that 100%, even just havingrandom things placed in your
(30:39):
office or in your car that isempowering messages, I mean,
that eventually gets into yourpsyche.
Arwen Bardsley (30:46):
So really, because I know a lot of people
like I use affirmation in mywork, you know, whenever I'm,
you know, doing a healingsession with a client, we set a
goal for the session, you know,what is it that you want to use
the energy for today, and thenat the end, I will send them
away with this goal, orintention, and suggest to them
(31:09):
that they use that as anaffirmation. So, but I know that
a lot of people, and to behonest, for myself, personally,
I can find it a bit. I don'tknow twee or something. And
obviously, there's somethingI've got to work on there. But
you're really saying thataffirmation is very powerful. I
(31:31):
mean, that's basically what thiswhole, you know, you write this
thing about how you want to beand that is a massive big
affirmation, isn't it?
Liz Louis (31:41):
For sure. In fact, I tell my clients, if you write in
the present tense, you shouldhave a tremendous list of I am
statements. And I agree on yourcomments. Sometimes I'm like,
you know, and it's funny,though, in my experience, what
I'm learning is a lot of thethings that you think wouldn't
work, work, and the things thatyou think would work don't work.
So it seems like the world isreally backwards. And one thing
(32:05):
that I really am seeing more andmore in science is proving it.
The spirituality practices havealways proven it, which is you
have to believe you have itbefore you'll see it. It feels
awkward. I remember. So in 2019,I was dying from a weird brain
condition. I was on the way toJohn Hopkins, which is like an
(32:26):
elite Hospital in America.
Because no one could tell mewhat was wrong with me. Um, it
felt literally like my brain wason fire. I just wanted to like
cut my skull off and like pourcold water on it. And it would
be excruciating how to shut downmy business in 2019. For a year,
I lost so much weight, it wasawful. And I just started doing
all this research and my faithand so forth. And just like, you
(32:51):
know, I'll do anything, I was sodesperate for healing. And I
just remember starting to behaveand act as if I was healed. As
if I was fully healed, eventhough I did not feel fully
healed, healed. And some days itwas hard, because you have to
essentially go against yourbodily sensations, which just
makes you feel freaking crazy.
(33:13):
And go no, I'm great. I'mawesome. Like, I would go up the
stairs like pretending I waswith my friends like with a cup
of wine laughing like, Oh, I'mgreat. I feel fine. Like it
sounds so silly and stupid. Butover time, I ended up walking
completely out of that braincondition within like, I think
90 days of being really focus ofreciting affirmations reciting
(33:33):
prayer, going against it doingeverything that was kind of
creating the, the pain I wouldlike, just do it more. It sounds
super weird. I know. And I justkept kept believing it was going
to be gone. And in time itcompletely dissipated. And I
have no idea what it was. Don'tcare to know. But I I was just
like, I can't do this becauseJohn Hopkins is also quite quite
(33:55):
expensive after a while
Arwen Bardsley (33:58):
Sure. Wow, that's incredible story. Okay,
so there was something I wasgonna ask you, then it's gone
anyway, might come back. But Iknow that I did myself your
thinking traps quiz that is onyour website. So I just wondered
(34:21):
if you can perhaps talk a bitabout what thinking traps are?
Are there some that are morecommon than others? And if
anything comes up, I can tellyou what my now.
Liz Louis (34:34):
Oh, sure. Do you want to start with that when
Arwen Bardsley (34:36):
you weren't?
Sure. Well, we'll actually whydon't you just say in general,
what thinking traps are first?
Liz Louis (34:43):
Sure. So a lot of therapy doesn't work. Cognitive
behavior therapy has been provento be the most effective at a
70% success rate. So like holdthat loosely. And what the
cognitive hypnotherapy says isthat we all have automatic
thoughts that just come to uslike They're just reactionary.
And when there are negativeautomatic thoughts, they're
(35:04):
called cognitive distortions isthe jargon. The slang can be
thinking traps, thinking,thinking, toxic thinking. And so
it's your dysfunctional way ofthinking that's automatic. And
there's about 17 categories, youcould say, like all or nothing,
shooting yourself, which is justfun to say, I'll be honest.
discounting the positives,mislabeling labeling thoughts
(35:24):
are true. And so it's just kindof more of an overarching
umbrella. And then you canfigure out which one you
struggle with the most at theend of the day. We all have
cognitive distortions, and noone makes sense with 95% of our
thoughts being the same everysingle day and 80% being
negative. So this is like noharm. But you're if you start to
get aware of what your automaticthinking patterns are, you can
(35:46):
actually start to identify yourcore beliefs, which are at the
end of the day, the route tothose automatic thoughts, which
is really helpful. And if ourthoughts are gonna be the same
every single day, well, might aswell get ahead of it, instead of
being super surprised by it. AndI have seen a commonality. So I
do, I used to do psychometrictesting. I'm a personality
theories expert. And so Istarted to quantify, like, what
(36:08):
my clients were saying in theirresults with their personality
type, or their temperament type.
And so if you're highlyconscientious meaning like you,
like you like rules, you'remoralistic, you probably are
going to struggle withperfectionism, and you're gonna
have a lot of should and all ornothing thinking tied to it.
I've seen yet where there's youmay. That was a big one. That
(36:28):
was a big one. And I've alsoseen where, like, labeling or
mislabeling. So essentially, youknow, you meet a person, once
they do something, and bam,you've just given them a label
finite, is really popular withcertain personalities, that are
a little bit more dominant andaggressive and almost critical
(36:49):
sounding at times. discountingthe positives is also a really
big one that can come across forpeople who struggle with rigid
rules or might struggle with alittle bit of pessimism and
depression, as well, becausethey're focused focusing on how
you know that one thing was off,right? Like you got all A's but
this one class, you got it. Yougot an A minus, so you must be a
(37:13):
loser now.
Arwen Bardsley (37:15):
Yeah, good.
Yeah. That wasn't one of mine.
Liz Louis (37:22):
And then I will say if only if you struggle with
jealousy and bitterness.
Arwen Bardsley (37:27):
If only I found that one Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
So my other ones were blame wasan 8.5. And emotional reasoning.
Now, that was one that I'd loveyou to talk a bit more about.
Liz Louis (37:43):
Emotional reasoning is essentially where you,
whatever that emotion that'skind of over overwhelming you is
how you make decisions. So wereally need to be making
decisions as with our values,because our feelings and our
emotions can change so much. Andso emotions are just kind of
like where you are consumed byyour emotional thoughts, and you
(38:03):
use them to make decisions orjudgments about a situation if
that makes sense.
Arwen Bardsley (38:08):
Oh, yeah. And blame that might have been when
you lost me?
Liz Louis (38:13):
Oh, yes, blaming.
Yeah. Blaming is a fun one. I'vestruggled with that one to
blaming is sometimes when weessentially we blame other
people for for our issues,right? Like you, and it's not
even other people. Sometimes itcan be blaming yourself. And
it's really denying your role inthe situation like maybe you
(38:34):
say, if only younger, younger, Iwould have a better job. So
you're almost making excuses tothings versus taking
accountability. Now, sometimesthere is no accountability, but
it's wanting to find anobjective, concrete reason to
why things aren't going the wayyou would prefer. Does that make
sense? Like we need thatconcrete reasoning.
Arwen Bardsley (38:56):
So something that you said before, we even
got into the thinking traps, butthen it's come back up again,
with what you've said there is.
I guess my question is aroundhonoring when you are feeling a
negative emotion, like, youknow, you are feeling angry, or
(39:16):
you are feeling sad, you know, Ido think it's important for
people to give those so callednegative emotions, their space
as well. So how do you kind ofbalance and juggle that so that
you don't, I guess, get trappedin in that and constantly
repeating it, but you do letyourself feel that for however,
(39:39):
whatever period of time isappropriate?
Liz Louis (39:46):
Yeah, that's a great question. So first, just to kind
of separate allowing space fornegative emotions and thinking
traps which kind of fall intothat negative, dysfunctional
thinking. The thinking traps aregoing to be that automatic like
nanosecond. scenario and so it'snot necessarily going to be
truth. It's just kind of theperspective or the meaning that
you're making out of life tokind of give yourself a
(40:07):
reasoning. When you're angry,when you're even sad or scared,
or frustrated, or feel shamed,or whatever it is, it's so much
better, like you're saying toaddress it and drink it away,
smoke it away, sex it away,whatever it might be. And
really, the best thing to do, alot of people might not like,
(40:29):
like the answer, because it'snot fun. But it's sitting with
it. It's practicing radicalacceptance and mindfulness where
you're not judging yourself,you're observing yourself,
you're you're you know, I liketo tell people you know, find a
safe space in your home orsomewhere where you can just
kind of breathe and not bebothered for a little bit. And
then internally, just imagineyourself at a park or something
(40:52):
and go sit on the bench in yourbrain, or be a fly on the wall
and just observe the thoughts. Ilove to journal. I've been
journaling since I was six. Sothis is where I'll journal
things. And I again, putting onthat Sherlock mindset, you know,
explore them curious withcuriosity, be curious, don't be
judging, don't be like, This ishow I have to be. I mean, we all
(41:12):
have weird thoughts andsensations and feelings. And
nobody can say it's right orwrong. At the end of the day,
that's really quite unfair, youmight have some dysfunction in
the thinking for sure. I mean,that's, that would be fair. But
what I like to tell people isreally allow yourself to
experience it and feel it, doyour best to kind of keep it to,
you know, at least a 48 hourperiod. I only say that because
(41:34):
you don't want to ruminate andallow it to breathe to brew and
and take over you. It's, we gotto be tough, and I say things
that sometimes annoy people andunderstand that, but sometimes
you just got to toughen up, andyou got to just choose to make
the decision to let it go.
Easier said than done. By allmeans. Especially when it comes
to forgiveness. But it's whenyou're at a place where you're
(41:57):
like, Okay, I can hold this andthe intensity, maybe you want to
rate the intensity of on a oneto 10 scale, I feel this emotion
right here. And then you exploreit, you're curious with it,
maybe it gets down to a lowernumber than I tell people is
like, what was the blessing?
What was the benefit? what didthat teach you? Because at the
end of the day, every situationis like a seed, and it contains
(42:20):
both negative and positiveelements. Now, you can't think
on two things. At the same time.
You can't think about the pastand the future simultaneously.
You can't think of a grasshopperand a peanut simultaneously. So
this is where I say like, nowlet's just focus on the
positives. What did it teachyou? What did you learn from it?
How did it grow you? How are youbetter from it, and find that
positive, optimistic spin andit's there, you might have to
(42:42):
bring up like, a nanoscope tosee it, but it's there, but
whatever you focus on in thebrain, it will grow.
Arwen Bardsley (42:50):
Yeah, yeah.
Thank you for that. And youmentioned just briefly before
something about personalitytraits. So is there any easy way
that you think people can cometo understand their personality
traits, and, you know, use themto their advantage, or, you
know, train themselves intodifferent personality traits? Is
(43:15):
that even possible?
Liz Louis (43:18):
It is. So by the time you're 10 months, your
personality starts to show andyour personality is half nature,
half nurture. And don't take meliteral and a half and half
because things can obviouslychange, we know the brain can
change. So I have a freeassessment called performance
development assessment thatscores you in 23 personality
traits. And you get a PDF thatexplains each personality trait.
(43:41):
Because in certainorganizations, they use
psychometric testing to seelike, is your personality good
for this job position, and thenit's kind of shows you like
where you need to improve ordecrease based off of it. I
mean, I've helped financialadvisors just increase
recognition or decreaserecognition with their sales
(44:01):
which has increased at closingrate of 25%. So some of this is
just recalibrations. I mean, youdon't know what you don't know
type deal. So I think half thebattle is growing the awareness
and then being willing to seewhat you're doing which is can
be difficult for a lot of peopleand then tweaking it there. I
like linear thinking. So I liketo have really clear step by
step so I do share some thingsthat you can intentionally do
(44:23):
for instance, some peopleespecially the type a individual
has low flexibility or anyonewho's had a lot of trauma in
their past are going to have alittle bit more low flexibility.
And so if you want to grow yourflexibility and you want to be
intentional about it a you gotto be willing to become
uncomfortable because that'sgoing to be a reality to this.
(44:44):
And number two start saying yesto everything you can say yes
to. If you say should a lot,start catching yourself. So if
you say should a lot typicallythat means you're you're highly
conscientious isn't a bad thing,but sometimes that can bring a
lot of oppression on you becauseyou're trying to do life and
(45:05):
this yes or no right or wrongblack or white tendency, and
life is really gray at the endof the day. And so if you can
kind of like, take thatperfectionistic pressure off of
you, and be like, Okay, let mehold this a little bit loosely.
Do I want to do this? Or do Ifeel I have to do this and kind
of just allowing yourself somechoice and play area. I mean,
it's amazing how when you justkind of see things at a
(45:27):
different angle, you can learnso much more, and your
perspective can broaden. Sothat's ultimately what we're
trying to do is just find newand different ways of seeing and
doing things. And one of thebest ways is just starting with
your vocabulary and what youtalk about.
Arwen Bardsley (45:41):
Yeah, and what you tell yourself, so that, that
quizz is on your website, aswell as
Liz Louis (45:47):
Yes. Oh my gosh, you're gonna laugh at the link.
I didn't think about it when Iwrote it. So I do apologize. But
it's Elizabeth L-O-U-I-S.combackslash performance dev ass.
didn't think about it, guys,when I wrote it.
Arwen Bardsley (46:03):
That's okay. And something I meant to ask you
much earlier was, when you'retalking about trauma, I'm
assuming that this can be forpeople as well, you know, those
small t traumas, not the big Ttraumas, like having a brother
trying to kill you. Obviously,that is a trauma, but I'm
(46:25):
assuming that a lot of smallerthings that, you know, you may,
we may even have forgotten thesethings that occurred in our
childhood, or, you know, theymay be triggered by things that
happen in adult life, like, youknow, your, your best friend did
something bad to you inkindergarten, and you know, then
(46:47):
something happens at work. Andthat gets triggered. But I'm
assuming that whenever you'retalking, you've talked about
trauma that we can, you know,this they may be small t
traumas, as I like to call themrather than necessarily the huge
ones. Is that correct?
Liz Louis (47:05):
Yeah, I like to tell yes. I like to tell people
trauma spectrum at the end ofthe day, it's kind of like hate
to say this like rape is aspectrum too like, I think a lot
of times when people hear traumaand rape they go to like worst
case scenario that we'd like todepict it and if it's not that,
then it doesn't fall into thebucket. It's not fair narcissism
is a huge spectrum too. Andagain, it's it's it's your
(47:25):
perspective. So if you feel likesomething was traumatized, it's
not fair for anyone to belittleit because they didn't go
through it at the end of theday. When you're doing trauma,
too. You mentioned a few thingsthere that I just wanted to
highlight. Make sure you get ridof the bitterness the fastest
you can learn how to forgive andforgive quickly, the freer
(47:46):
you're going to be. The fact ofthe matter is, all humans mess
up. We all do stupid things.
We're all pretty effed up attimes, pardon my language there.
Everyone wants forgiveness, veryfew are willing to give it and
be mindful of your hypocriticalways of where you're like, I'm
so mad that they did this to me.
Meanwhile, you did somethingsimilar, if not the same thing
to another person. And get overyourself. Let it be. Let it go.
(48:09):
Move on, find the positive learnfrom it. Go again. Life is all a
learning experience. I mean, youlearn everything.
Arwen Bardsley (48:17):
Yeah, yeah.
Okay, great. Thank you for that.
Um, I just wanted to ask youwhat your thoughts are on
Neurofeedback as a way ofchanging our our brains.
Liz Louis (48:31):
Yeah. Neurofeedback is great. Neurobiofeedback is
awesome. All of that stuff. Youknow, there are so many tools in
today's world, that I think it'sunfair to say what works and
what doesn't work. Because Imean, the placebo effect is
really the most effective thingat the end of the day. So if you
believe it's going to work foryou, then do it. At the end of
(48:53):
the day, I mean, we've seen Imean, just to tell you like,
antidepressants are half a unitmore effective than therapy.
Yeah, I mean, half a unit, we'reeven talking about that, or I
think it's more half a unit moreeffective than placebo effect.
I'm so sorry. I mean, like, it'samazing what your brain can
create and do. So and just likeif you don't like your doctor,
(49:16):
the prescription they give youwill be less effective than if
you go to a doctor that youlike, and trust. So if you
believe it could help you tryit, I did it. I tried everything
that was willing that that mightwork, because it's like, I don't
know. And sometimes thingsdidn't work because I didn't
like the person providing theservice. Psychological safety is
going to be huge, especially ifyou've never had that imprinted
(49:39):
in your psyche as a child. So goto the places where you feel
safe. I mean, even in therapy,we found that talking to a
therapist or a best friend is nodifferent at the end of the day.
Now, I would encourage you tostop talking about the things
you hate and venting venting isactually really destructive to
the brain talking aboutnegativity is destructive to the
brain. And so when you start tospeak negativity, you can
(50:02):
actually create your irreparabledamage to you and the listener
at the end of the day. So Ialways tell people, and this is
what neuroscientist AndrewNewberg encouraged us to. He's a
neuroscientist fromPennsylvania, he says for every
one negative find three to fivepositives. And that's the ratio
at the end of the day to helpget your brain back into being
more of a healthy neurology. Andso again, it doesn't matter if
(50:24):
you go to a therapist or acoach, just go to someone who
can provide safety, a soundingboy or a board. Objective
thinking and isn't going to justjoin your boat for the sake of
joining your boat, but it'sgoing to challenge and help you
grow, and then be willing to dothe work, the only thing you can
control is your effort at theend of the day.
Arwen Bardsley (50:42):
So if you're in a situation where you are
venting about something, thenyou're just saying, Bring in
some positive stuff, as well.
Liz Louis (50:52):
I'm saying Don't vent about it. Everyone knows what
they don't like, what is talkingabout what you don't like really
going to do besides exacerbateand grow the anger and the
frustration. What you can do isbe proactive, okay, here's the
situation, I give my clientsfive to 10 minutes of care yet,
let's get it off our chest. Somepeople do just need to like be
heard and validated. That'sfair, there's a difference of
(51:14):
like, going on the merry goround of ruminating and kicking
the same point over and over andover again, telling me what you
don't like, and the person isgetting more and more aggressive
and angry because of it. versussaying, okay, great. This is
what you don't like, awesome. Ihear you. I'm sorry, that
happened? What do you want to doabout it? You want to keep
talking about how much you hatedit. Because that's not going to
do a darn thing at the end ofthe day, besides make you more
(51:35):
frustrated, more angry, morenegative? And so then we we
focus on what can we do aboutit? Okay, Sally, hurt your
feelings. Sorry, Sally hurt yourfeelings? Where is it in your
control that you maybe agreewith her when you didn't have
to? Where did you give her morepower where you didn't have to?
Where can we get you a littlebit more tough minded, you have
to be tough minded in life,unfortunately, I'm sorry. It's
(51:58):
not necessarily the funnestthing to hear. But you have to
become a little bit more toughminded and take accountability
to where you're responsible forcertain stuff, right? wrong or
indifferent. No one's mad atyou, and then make a concrete
plan to change to do the work toovercome it. Because it's very
easy for a human to tell youwhat they don't like, it's very
hard for humans to tell you whatthey do like sometimes.
Arwen Bardsley (52:20):
Yeah, okay. All right. Thank you for that. So
we're coming to the end,obviously, love for you to tell
us about your podcast, and alsoany other service offerings, any
specials that you've got at themoment that you want people to
know about.
Liz Louis (52:38):
So I can because we don't have that much time in
life at the end of the day. So Iwant to help give people
strategies to move forward. Andthen right now I have an online
self paced course called mindsetmastery. It goes through eight
modules with a bonus module, andit talks about every single
(53:01):
thing in a very actionable stepby step tangible plan to help
you create a strong mentalFoundation. Because what I found
is a lot of my clients weretrying to build a third Storey,
and I'm like, you don't evenhave a first storey, what are
you what's gonna hold up thethird storey like, we've got to
get this strong foundation,sturdy before you can go up and
up and up? And so that's exactlywhat mindset mastery does is it
(53:24):
teaches you exactly how to buildthat strong mindset, how to make
decisions, how to have healthyself talk, how to shift your
thinking how to speakeffectively, because that's huge
in relationships, and really,how to just transform your life
to something more positive andhopeful. So you can continue to
build on it. Because I don'tthink we ever fully like Master
master our mindsets, becausewe're always evolving and
(53:46):
growing. And so it's like, howdo we get to that next level,
and just get really further fromthe dock at the end of the day?
Because I think that's what mostpeople want is like, get me out
of this place. I want totransform. And so it's a linear
application to transformation.
Arwen Bardsley (54:00):
Okay, great. So and just say your website again
for everyone?
Liz Louis (54:05):
Oh, yes. Elizabeth L-O-U-I-S.com.
Arwen Bardsley (54:08):
Okay. And so the, the quizzes are on there,
as well as the course that youjust mentioned, and lots of
other information as well.
Liz Louis (54:18):
Yes, exactly.
Arwen Bardsley (54:19):
And your podcast is on all the podcast platforms?
Liz Louis (54:22):
Yes, it is. It is. It is for sure.
Arwen Bardsley (54:25):
All right, wonderful. Well, I really
appreciate your time today Liz,and was a really fun
conversation. Lots ofinformation for people to wrap
their minds around. And thankyou so much for coming on.
Liz Louis (54:43):
Thank you so much.
Arwen for having me. You hadsome awesome questions. You were
terrific. Host This was so muchfun.
Arwen Bardsley (54:50):
All right. Take care Liz.
All right.
Welcome, everybody. Welcome backto another episode. I'm really
delighted today to haveElizabeth Louis as my guest,
Liz, as I'm going to call herbecause that sounds a lot more
friendly to me. Liz is anexecutive performance coach who
specializes inneuropsychotherapy. Liz had a
traumatic childhood that shedisregarded for many years as an
(00:22):
adult and went off intotelevision production as a
career. But it was whilstfilming a wildlife documentary
off the coast of South Africathat Liz realized the truth
about her childhood and decidedto heal herself. And to help
herself become the best personthat she could be. Two
(00:45):
postgraduate psychology degreeslater, Liz now works with Type A
leaders to help them increasetheir cognitive awareness to
advance their careers andthemselves. She also hosts
mental health boot camps, onlinecourses, and mental health
podcast, a blog and lots more.
(01:07):
So there is so much we can getinto with that, Liz, I do just
like to start with a bit ofbackground about you in terms of
why you are where you are now.
And you know, your what, whatthe origins of you are that if
we can go into a bit more detailfrom what I've just said, and
(01:30):
especially, I would love toknow, about this realization
that you had whilst filming thewildlife documentary, how did
that come about? That would bewonderful.
Liz Louis (01:44):
Yes, yes. Well, thank you for such a beautiful
introductory too, I'll startbackwards, because the
realization and the why kind ofgo together to a degree. I
laugh, because I was that Imoved out when I was 16. And
from 16, until probably 27-28, Imoved every two weeks to nine
(02:06):
months. And so I kind of havethis joke of I was just like
running away from my lifeproblems. And I'm moved What,
like 10,000 miles away to SouthAfrica, thinking, I guess I
could escape my problems to adegree you can't they, they
follow you. They definitelyfollow you. And it was there in
South Africa, as I was listeningto my mates. And my peers in the
(02:28):
production camp, just talk abouttheir childhood, because a lot
of us were really young. And Iwas like, Holy crap, my
childhood was not normal, andwas super toxic and traumatic,
because you don't know what youdon't know. And so I kind of
joke and I say God, like rippedthe curtain from my psyche. He
was like, You're gonna deal withthis stuff. 10,000 miles away
right here right now. And sothat's when I realized, like, I
(02:52):
don't want to have the traumathat I've had, I want to get
over it. And so I startedtherapy again. But everyone was
just so like amazed to mychildhood because my brother is
a psychopath and tried killingme my whole life. I'm not
kidding when I say that. And Iwas like, Cool. My childhood was
traumatic. I don't need someoneto confirm that I now see that I
want to know how to get freefrom the complex PTSD that I
(03:14):
ended up being diagnosed with. Iwant to know how to like break
free from my past and live inthe present and create a better
future and no therapist couldtell me how to do that. And I
went to a handful, and I'd beenin therapy since I was 11. And I
just decided as egotistical asit sounds, I'll just get my own
degree in psychology and fixmyself since nobody knows how to
(03:37):
do it. And then one thing led toanother and I started learning
about neuroplasticity, and thebrain and neuroscience, and
psychology. And I just used meas a guinea pig. And I quickly
started to transform myself in2017, I had no immune system.
They told me to go and live inlike a bubble, like bubble boy
from and I was like no that'snot happening. And within like,
(04:01):
I think four or five months, Iwalked out of an autoimmune
disease. I had a better immuneimmune system, just from doing
neurological psychological workin my in my mind and just
implementing and transforming.
Yeah, it was it was insane. Imean, there was definitely a lot
of hard days where, you know,thank goodness for a support
system and a puppy dog thatloves you.
Arwen Bardsley (04:23):
Yeah, absolutely. And thank goodness,
you got a good immune systembefore we had a global pandemic
as well.
Liz Louis (04:30):
Yes, yeah, I know timing can be can be one thing
for sure. And then it was funnybecause in grad school for my
first degree, I ended up justbeing naturally good, because my
specialty was in my subspecialtywas coaching psychology. So I
ended up being good as a coachand my professors just
automatically gave me some oftheir overflow to work with. So
(04:51):
I never intended to do this fora living. It just kind of fell
that way. And I love it so much.
I love reading. I love learningabout it, that it's just huge
passion. And I just believe youcan make the impossible possible
because I've seen it. And wehear stories that do it. And at
the end of the day, faith andfear are equal and substance. So
let's give it all the faith andnone of the fear.
Arwen Bardsley (05:11):
Oh, I love that.
And so before that, how did youWhy television as well, I'm just
curious, got nothing to do withthis interview. But I just
wondered how you got into that?
Liz Louis (05:24):
Yeah, for sure. Um, so I grew up with full house.
And I didn't understand why MaryKate and Ashley gotta start
working. And I come in. So I'vealways kind of had an
entreprenuer mind. I had myfirst business when I was six,
and then 10, and then 13, and soforth. And when I was 15, I
became a professional model. Andthen I went a little bit behind
(05:46):
the camera. I just always lovedacting. So originally, it was
always for acting and being infront. But you know, people
treat you like crap. Sometimeswhen you're in front of the
camera, and there's a lot ofmisogynistic people out there.
And so I kind of got tired ofit. And I didn't, I need to
challenge personally. So then Idecided, well, I'll just go
behind the camera, because I hadlike, I mean, I started doing
(06:08):
professional theater training atlike, eight years old. And so I
was like, well, I'll just takewhat I know. And I'll put it in
the back. But by the time I leftproduction, I just didn't like
how America was doing things inHollywood. Personally, I just, I
thought that there was a lot ofcorruption. And I didn't want to
(06:29):
partake in it. I mean, like, Ithink 75% of television shows
today, show violence and onlyand 60% of those 75% violent
shows don't show anyconsequences for the actions.
And yet we're like, why do wehave a violence issue in
America? I'm like, well, thereyou have it, dudes.
Arwen Bardsley (06:48):
Yeah, okay. Oh, interesting. Thank you for that
little aside. So I really needto start with the question about
what is neuro psychotherapy,obviously, how does it different
differ from standard therapy.
And you know, and you'vementioned that you're, you just
got a natural ability atcoaching and counseling people.
(07:12):
So I'm just wondering if you cantell us a bit about what your
approach is in therapeuticsetting that makes you
different,
Liz Louis (07:22):
for sure, for sure.
So and I'm going to say this invery simplistic terms, too. So
there's always the exception tothe rule. So traditional
therapists typically focus onyour emotions and your feelings.
Where as a neuro psychotherapistis in the psychotherapy setting
is going to focus on youremotions and your feelings, but
also your brain behaviorconnection. And so when I have a
(07:42):
client, I listen very carefullyto the words that they're saying
and how they're thinking,because actually will tell me
what parts of their brain areoverdeveloped or under
poverished. And so I want tohelp them have a healthy
neurology because that can leadto a healthier psychology. It's
not everything, but it's part ofit. And so it just helps me
figure out where we need to,honestly, I'll say it this way,
(08:04):
it helps me find their, theircore root issue at a faster
level. Because I know what weneed to do. For instance, if
you're speaking a lot of fearbased language, then I know most
likely you're living in yourlimbic system. And there's just
certain words that over theyears of doing this, that kind
of tell me what you most likelystruggle with. For instance, if
you have I think it's I'm gonnaget this confused right now. I
(08:25):
think it's your, when your rightside of your prefrontal cortex
is over developed might be itmight be left, for some reason
I'm drawing a blank, thattypically means you have more of
avoidance behavior, which meansyou're going to struggle more
with depression. And so humansneed goals, but we need positive
goals. So then it's like, Okay,let me help you feed those
neurons on the opposite side. Sowe can have that ability to have
(08:45):
more of a balanced healthypsychology. And it's really, I
don't know how it is inAustralia, but in America, it's
disgusting. What therapistslearn in grad school, they don't
learn enough to really be anadequate therapist. It's, it
breaks my little heart, to becompletely honest. But there's
things that a therapist can doif they're, if they're trained
(09:06):
in the brain. And if they alsoare passionate, and they can do
the research themselves of we'rejust having a conversation with
a client, you'll actually startto rewire their brain clients
not going to know it sounds likeI'm brainwashing them. I don't
mean it in a negative sense. Butit's it's the quicker we can
create new neural connectionsand start to stop starve or
block the old neurons, thefaster we're gonna get that
transformation. And that's wheremy clients get transformation
(09:28):
within about three sessions.
Arwen Bardsley (09:31):
Wow, that's so quick.
Liz Louis (09:34):
Right? Right. You just go right to the A lot of
people like to deal withsymptoms when you've got to go
to the core issue.
Arwen Bardsley (09:40):
Yep. Yeah. And that is the same in any health
or wellness, you know, settingisn't it? It's and
Unfortunately, our whole cultureand society and we are the same
as America in this way is, youknow, we all want a magic pill
or want to just be able to youYou know, take that magic pill
(10:01):
or you know, it's notnecessarily a pill, but you
know, I just want to be able todo one session, and then I'm
better. And, you know, ifyou've, if you've been dealing
with something, or something'shad an impact on you for the
whole of your life, and youcannot expect that it's just
going to take, you know, onelittle thing, one little pill,
one little, whatever, andeverything will be different.
(10:23):
But if you're getting to theroot cause of that, then you
can, you know, cut it off,destroy it, replace it at that,
at that level.
Liz Louis (10:33):
Exactly, exactly.
It's, you know, and it's effortat the end of the day, we just
have to hone in our effort andjust kind of let go the outcome
sometimes.
Arwen Bardsley (10:42):
Yeah. So in that situation, where you've worked
out that somebody is workingfrom a place of I can't remember
what you just said, fear or youknow, they need positive goals.
So can you just like talk usthrough an example of what a
(11:03):
scenario might be?
Liz Louis (11:04):
Yeah, I'll just use myself for some of this not for
one of them. So there'ssomething called a limbic loop.
So depending on when you've hadtrauma, your brain can be wired
differently, because untilyou're about 11, you can't think
abstract and your brain doesn'tfully mature until age 25. So
there's lots of time we have asyoung ones that unfortunately
(11:26):
can scar us and cause obstaclesfor our future. My father died
right after my seventh birthday.
And then most of my familyexcept for my mom, and my
brother died afterwards, rightafter my dad died, I was going
to funeral that every week, thenit went to every month. And then
every year, I mean, it was likedeath, death, death, death
death. Now, my dad had me whenhe was 61 years old. So it might
be important to understand thatmuch of my family was older too.
(11:48):
Not that it matters when you'reseven, but just for context. And
when my dad died, my brotherstarted becoming really violent
and abusive towards me, he waskind of like my protector. So
what we want to have happen isprefrontal cortex needs to wire
to your limbic system.
Unfortunately, because I wasconstantly experiencing
(12:13):
hardship, you could say orsuffering at such a young age,
my brain was so wired the limbicsystem, the prefrontal cortex.
And what that means is thatyou're always in a fight,
flight, or freeze or fine typeof mentality. So I lived in my
closet as a little girl, becauseit was like the safest place for
me. And I could listen for whenthe like insanity of my brother
(12:33):
was going to come about. And sowhen I moved out at 16, I was
like the slightest little noise.
I was like, Where do I need togo? Where do I need to hide?
Right? So I was always reallyvigilant, like hyper vigilant,
could hear conversations acrossthe hall was always on edge just
could not get out of it. And sothat limbic loop is called. So a
limbic loop is kind of whereyou're constantly on rumination,
(12:54):
right? You're always thinkingabout those past events, you
can't let them go. They're kindof injuring your psyche, even at
an unconscious level. So youmight not be always consciously
aware, but you're sweating alot. You're anxious, you're
right, there's somaticsensations that we can have. And
this was actually what wasdestroying my immune system,
because fear is the number onekiller at the end of the day. I
mean, it's insane. What fear cando. And so when I started to
(13:18):
learn about the limbic system,and the thing called a limbic
loop, where you're just stuck inthis fight or flight freeze,
because your limbic system iswhat codes all the information,
if you will, that comes intoyour mind. I learned techniques,
and they're so simplistic, thatit feels like they wouldn't
work. They're so simplistic tohelp me get out of that limbic
system so I could breathe, andso my anxiety could go down.
(13:40):
Because what people forget isthinking actually changes your
neurology. It's crazy, right?
And so the, the the key toneuroplasticity is repetition,
changing your vocabulary, andliterally thinking new things at
the end of the day, which is alittle bit easier said than
done. But what I would do is Iwould have to start to become
(14:02):
really conscious. For instance,if I heard a noise, or even
perfume, perfume used to likemake me have a sore throat. So
multiple chemical sensitivity isvery normal, when you have
limited or trauma issues.
And so like perfume would giveme a sore throat and I remember
one day, I was in a yoga class,and I was like, Okay, I'm gonna
stay here and just like almostlike exposure therapy with the
(14:23):
perfume. But then you do thiswhere you say, hey, brain,
you're sending me falseinformation. The perfume is not
impacting me, I'm safe, and I'mhealthy. And I'm good. I'm doing
things differently, right? Andyou just say that over and over.
Sometimes it's like everynanosecond because your
amygdala, when it feels a threatcan override everything within a
nanosecond. I mean, youramygdala is really fast to get
(14:45):
on top of things. So sometimesit's you catch it and you work
backwards. And if you've everbeen in a conversation where
there's been like a loud boom orsomething, you kind of forget
what you were talking about. Andonce you realize everything was
safe, that's kind of what you'redoing it same with chiropractic
right it's interrupt patterns,interrupt. patterns, interrupt
patterns, interrupt patterns,that's kind of the key. So you
can tie in like physiology inthe sense of snapping or hugging
(15:06):
yourself, just to kind of bringin an additional support system.
Because when you can bring youremotions, your physiology and
your psychology together,typically change happens at a
faster rate. And so it's justchanging the way you think, to
be more of what you want to seeat the end of the day, because
going back to faith and fear arekind of equal in substance. When
we reject what we don't want tosee, that's fear, when we
(15:26):
protect what we do want to see,that's faith, if you will. And
so it's constantly changing thedialogue and reminding yourself,
you're safe. Assuming you'retruly in a place where you're
safe. Obviously, if you're not,it's not going to work. But
that's just one technique.
Another technique going to theavoidance versus so we, you
either are going to createavoidant goals or you're going
to create positive goals. Peoplewho are going to create avoidant
(15:48):
goals are going to tell me a lotof what they don't like, they're
going to speak a lot ofnegativity, a lot of noes. A lot
of not a lot of I can't type ofthings. And so an example of
this would be for an avoidantgoal would be I'm moving to the
country to get away from thenoise, right, you're motivated
by what you don't want to dealwith a positive goal would be,
I'm moving to the country forpeace and quiet. So it's a
(16:10):
shift. And it sounds like I'msplitting hairs. But it's the
difference between a healthy andunhealthy psychology. It's also
the difference from pessimismand optimism, which are basic
things we need. Optimism is whatwe need to have if we're going
to encourage our hope, andcontinue to grow. And so those
are just two very simpleexamples of what I was sharing
there.
Arwen Bardsley (16:32):
And yeah, so it's really about the language
in a way, isn't it that you'reusing? And so when you're saying
this stuff, are you, you know,do you need to be saying it out
loud? Or is it just repeating itin your mind silently?
Liz Louis (16:48):
That's gonna be a little bit dependent on the
person. This is where I say,bring your unique self to the
table. The first thing is yougot to be willing, you got to
have an open mind, to think andsee things differently and try
things differently. When you canI say do it out loud, because
it's something really powerfulif you're like, inner ear,
hearing your own voice. But atthe same time, like if you're in
(17:08):
the middle of a work meeting, orin your kids school play, you
can't be like, Hey, Brian, I'msafe. I'm safe, like, right, you
can't do that. And so there'sthings that like you have to be
willing to manipulate and kindof recalibrate when the moment
arises. I mean, I should havedied from an eating disorder.
And I remember a few years ago,I was on a walk with my husband.
(17:30):
And it sounds so silly, but it'snormal for people who've
struggled with eating disorders,my like, my sports bra was so
tight and so uncomfortable. Itwas making me feel fat, as silly
as that sounds. And I justremember under my breath in the
middle of a conversation withhim, I was like, Hey, pay body,
hey, brain, you're safe, you'resending me false information.
Everything is okay, I'm not fat,I'm good. I'm thin, I'm working
(17:53):
out I'm doing the things I needto do. And it's, it's almost
like parenting that inner childinside of you. Because your
brain can send you falseinformation. This is why we
cannot fully trust our feelings,unfortunately.
Arwen Bardsley (18:05):
And yeah, it's so with the finger snapping? Is
there something that you can doinstead of that, that, you know,
like, if you are in your kidsschool play that it's not going
to be. So obvious, there areother sorts of physical things
you can do.
Liz Louis (18:24):
For sure. And you don't even have to snap where
you like make a sound too. Butthis is where again, bring your
unique, unique personality toit. Some people like to touch
their hearts, some people kindof like to like cross their arms
and like hold themselves to adegree. You could take steps
backwards, you could stay takesteps forward, sideways. I mean,
it's just any any motion thatcould help you create a more of
(18:46):
a disturbance in that pattern,if that makes sense. So we think
in association, so we're justtrying to create more of
association. So like when youget this we go this way versus
going that old way if that makessense.
Arwen Bardsley (18:57):
Right? Okay.
Okay. Okay. Yeah, that makessense. So, yeah, I read a
statistic on your website, whichI have heard before that we
think about 95% the same thingsevery day. And then 80% of our
thoughts are negative, which isjust incredible. Why is it that
our brains develop like this?
(19:24):
And and how can we useneuroplasticity to our advantage
to try and reduce that 95%? Isit possible to do that?
Liz Louis (19:34):
Oh, yeah, for sure.
And I actually read an article afew weeks ago that this blows my
mind. You can have one to 99% ofyour thoughts being negative,
like Oh, my goodness, that'sinsane. No, break that right
now. You know, neuroscience isstill a very new science.
Believe it or not, the brain isextremely complex. We know that
(19:54):
thoughts typically are Aresparked due to external stuff.
But that external thing you seecan spark an unconscious memory
at the end of the day. Andhumans are creatures of habits
at the end of the day, we don'twant to admit that. Just like we
have a default mode to thegrocery store. Typically, the
default mode of thinking, andperspective is something that we
(20:16):
can't clearly define inpsychology, because however you
make meaning out of life, isgoing to be influenced on how
you think especially those corebeliefs if we use the cognitive
behavior therapy model. So Idon't fully know why we are this
way, I will do more research onthat to learn to be completely
honest. Can you change?
(20:39):
Absolutely, one thing Iencourage people to do is get
clear on what do you want tothink I like to tell people to
have like seven buckets ofthinking. And what I would do is
like, is this thought loving? Isit true? Is it worthy of praise?
Is it encouraging and kind, Iwould just kind of, I wanted to
always be that person. When youwere in my space, you just felt
(20:59):
like love coming from me. Andacceptance and psychological
safety, for sure. And so Icreated buckets that kind of
honored those that reality thatI was trying to do. And I
remember I would go on walks orI'd be thinking, I'd be like,
ooh, does that thought, honorany of these buckets? If not,
you got to get out of here. Andunfortunately, a lot of people
(21:22):
are mindless with theirthinking, like, I don't know if
you've done this, but I'll admitthat I've done this, I used to
like drive down the road andlike killing off my whole family
in my mind. And I'm like, howwould I survive? What would I
do? You know, like, kind ofcreating worst case scenario for
fun. And I stopped doing that,you know, and it's just like
what check in what are youthinking, mindful? Being
(21:43):
leveraging mindfulness with yourthoughts is so important, you
have to start to grow awareness?
And what are you thinking? Is itgoing to resonate to what you
want? Because we've proven inneuroscience, and the funniest
thing to me is, most religionssay the same thing too is, you
work to create your mostdominant thought. So if you
don't like your life, yourthoughts got you there at the
end of the day, I mean, yes,there's the exception to the
(22:04):
rule of No, you can't controlwhere you're born, what color
you are, or what have you. Butat the end of the day, where you
are currently, your thoughtsmost likely got you there to a
degree. So I tell people,especially my clients, when they
first come see me, write aboutyour ideal self, remove all
constraints, time, money skills,write it in the present tense,
and read it every single day,because what we found, and this,
again, shows you the power ofyour thoughts is if you
(22:26):
intentionally read over how youwant your life to be what you
want to think about, and you dothat for an hour a day,
accumulatively for 180 daysstraight, so six months, by the
end of that 180 days, you'll be90% there or have more clarity
on the next steps to continue toget there because some of the
stuffs obviously gonna be alittle complicated. And it's
insane just from thinking thatmost people focus on what they
(22:49):
don't want versus what they dowant. Which is why, you know, I
think we've personally positivepositive thinking that's toxic.
I don't even want to rememberwhat is called toxic positive
thinking or something annoys mebecause I'm like, You can't
blame a person for being overlypositive. I mean, perspectives
perspective, we can't really sayit's right or wrong. It seems
(23:11):
like there's a lot of pessimistswho've gotten upset at the
positive thinking at the end ofthe day.
Arwen Bardsley (23:19):
Well, it sounds like we're all you know,
pessimists. By nature, for somereason that we need to find it.
I mean, I guess it's all comesback to, you know, caveman days
of, we kind of were in so muchmore physical danger, then. Not
everyone, but a lot of us arethese days, and the brain just
(23:39):
developed from that place of,you know, checking that
everything's okay constantly,and fearing everything, because
we didn't know where the nextsaber toothed Tiger might come
around the corner from.
Liz Louis (23:53):
Well, interestingly enough, too, we're actually
wired for love. That's why itfeels good. That's our default
way. It's being wired for love.
And if you kind of think aboutin this perspective, if we were
wired for fear, it would feelbetter. And there's two types of
fear. I like to tell people it'slike the God given fear, like
the saber toothed Tiger, versusthe you know, your manufacturing
(24:14):
the fear, because it's notreally there. But it's, it's
being projected, based off ofyour past if you if you will.
One question I like to tellpeople which might be beneficial
here is like if I could stripaway all your fear, all the
pain, all the negativity, allthe rejection, all the shame,
all the guilt, every bad thingthat impacted you, who would you
(24:35):
be?
Arwen Bardsley (24:39):
Yeah, that's a really good question, isn't it?
And so just going back to whatyou said before about, so then,
therefore, if you write downwill, you know, who do I want to
be write some piece about? Thisis who I would be if I had no
constraints. And you mentionedreading that for an hour a day
and I'm like, well nobody'sgoing to do that. So what what
(25:02):
would you say is the, you know,manageable way to do that kind
of thing.
Liz Louis (25:07):
Yes, associations create associations to help you
a remember when to do it.
Because you have time, it's justare you willing to do it and it
can be 15 minutes here, fiveminutes, they're two minutes,
they're three minutes, they'relike, just find a way. One thing
that I did and still do is Ilike to exercise. So I would do
it when I was exercising,Labyrinth walks are a great time
(25:29):
to do it. Because walks justnaturally create increased
creativity. And so it's aperfect time for you to think on
those things as well. And alsobring in that visualization
piece. And labyrinth walks arewhere you just don't have to pay
attention to your path, becauseit's so common sense to you. So
if you don't have an actuallabyrinth, just find a path in
your neighborhood, memorize it,don't think about it. I used to
(25:51):
write it on notecards, like fiveof them that I really wanted to
like Master and memorize becauseit might take some time to
memorize your list too. Andlike, if I was in a doctor's
office waiting, I would read it,then if I was in the carpool
line, I'd read it then I wouldrecord myself saying them all
and I would play it as I woulddrive to a stop. So it was all
(26:11):
like how can I quickly programmy brain? Because it is true. I
mean to everything we do ashumans, we have to learn we, we
have to be taught these things.
So find your way of learning andpay attention to it. I will tell
you in the mornings prayer isreally important to me
personally. So in the mornings,I kind of bring it into my
(26:33):
prayer time of just thanking myGod for all that he's bringing
me and you know, letting it go,because kind of going back to
just how fear works. You know,when we're constantly in fear
it's because we're really livingin the future in the past, and
we're missing the present. Ifyou can learn how to hone your
focus to be in the present,because it's the only time you
(26:55):
exist at the end of the day.
It's amazing the amount ofstress that just naturally falls
off of you. Of course it is youhave to practice this because
it's it's a focus you have tolearn and practice. But that
would even be a great time ofjust like, Okay, I'm going to
take five minutes of mindfulmeditation and just recite and
envision my list and anytime aworry or the future or the past
(27:16):
comes into mind. I'm just gonnalet it go like a gray cloud.
Arwen Bardsley (27:23):
And, but what if what's coming to me is, yeah,
I'm reading this list, or I'mlistening to this list if I've
recorded it. And I reckon I'mstill gonna get those little
monkey mind thoughts coming andgoing. No, that's not that's
rubbish. Don't be silly. So whatdo you do about that?
Liz Louis (27:43):
That's brilliant. I'm so happy. You said that. That is
a great opportunity then to puton the Sherlock Holmes mindset I
like to say, which is just beingthat detective if you're not
familiar with Sherlock Holmes,and just being very curious and
looking more at data and the bigpicture versus the, that small
little weed, if you will, andexploring, okay, what's making
me not believe this is possible,because maybe it's your low self
(28:06):
esteem coming to the table,great, here's an opportunity for
you to start being intentionalabout working on your self
esteem, go get a coach, go get abest friend, go get a therapist,
go get a book, whatever youneed, go get it and be willing
to do it. Or maybe it's gonnatake some time to build up your
faith. Maybe you really believeyou could have that in the in
the, like, 25 years from now.
But you don't think it'spossible right now? Well, are
(28:27):
you willing to maybe learn theskills? Or do the things that
are in your control now to togrow there? Do you really want
it? Do you want it for vainreasons? I mean, I have a lot of
clients who just want to be abillionaire, just to flick off a
person who hurt them in firstgrade. I mean, sorry, that's
being vain. Get over yourself.
Arwen Bardsley (28:44):
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah. Love it. And anotherquestion that I had was, I know,
I've heard before that listeningto things like right before
you're going to sleep. So if yourecorded your voice saying all
this stuff, and you listen to itright before you went to sleep,
that that's a really powerfultime for your brain to receive
information. Is that true?
Liz Louis (29:08):
It is, and I'm so happy you said that because
actually forgot this fun fact.
So we think in two differentways sensory based thinking and
language based thinking.
Language Based is what you and Iare doing right now by verbally
talking. An example of sensorybased thinking is when you like
slam on brakes, because you seea red light or a child across
the street, right? You don't,you don't go there. Hey, Liz,
you see a child, you shouldmaybe slow down, right? You just
(29:30):
do it right before you're evenaware. And your sensory based
thinking is really connected toyour unconscious mind. And it's
four times faster than yourconscious mind. And it never
shuts off. And so when you reador study right before you go to
bed, you're still chewing on itas you're sleeping because
you've actually kind of put itmore in your sensory based
thinking. It's like if you'veever woken in the middle of the
(29:52):
night and you're like, oh, Ihave that idea now or Oh, I get
it. It's because your sensorybased thinking was still working
as you were Sleeping, or ifyou've ever like woken up and
you're like, Oh, now Iunderstand why I was upset about
whatever happened yesterday,it's because your brain was
still working on it at the endof the day. And the cool thing
to hear is when you have a cleargoal, and you're really putting
(30:16):
effort to that goal, whateveryou're spending your time and
infusing at night, you're justgoing to help kind of encourage
getting that goal by just kindof training your reticular
activity system, which brings inour stimuli, or I'm sorry, which
highlights whatever we tell it,because it's just too much
stimuli in the world. And sothere's so much benefit of doing
that 100%, even just havingrandom things placed in your
(30:39):
office or in your car that isempowering messages, I mean,
that eventually gets into yourpsyche.
Arwen Bardsley (30:46):
So really, because I know a lot of people
like I use affirmation in mywork, you know, whenever I'm,
you know, doing a healingsession with a client, we set a
goal for the session, you know,what is it that you want to use
the energy for today, and thenat the end, I will send them
away with this goal, orintention, and suggest to them
(31:09):
that they use that as anaffirmation. So, but I know that
a lot of people, and to behonest, for myself, personally,
I can find it a bit. I don'tknow twee or something. And
obviously, there's somethingI've got to work on there. But
you're really saying thataffirmation is very powerful. I
(31:31):
mean, that's basically what thiswhole, you know, you write this
thing about how you want to beand that is a massive big
affirmation, isn't it?
Liz Louis (31:41):
For sure. In fact, I tell my clients, if you write in
the present tense, you shouldhave a tremendous list of I am
statements. And I agree on yourcomments. Sometimes I'm like,
you know, and it's funny,though, in my experience, what
I'm learning is a lot of thethings that you think wouldn't
work, work, and the things thatyou think would work don't work.
So it seems like the world isreally backwards. And one thing
(32:05):
that I really am seeing more andmore in science is proving it.
The spirituality practices havealways proven it, which is you
have to believe you have itbefore you'll see it. It feels
awkward. I remember. So in 2019,I was dying from a weird brain
condition. I was on the way toJohn Hopkins, which is like an
(32:26):
elite Hospital in America.
Because no one could tell mewhat was wrong with me. Um, it
felt literally like my brain wason fire. I just wanted to like
cut my skull off and like pourcold water on it. And it would
be excruciating how to shut downmy business in 2019. For a year,
I lost so much weight, it wasawful. And I just started doing
all this research and my faithand so forth. And just like, you
(32:51):
know, I'll do anything, I was sodesperate for healing. And I
just remember starting to behaveand act as if I was healed. As
if I was fully healed, eventhough I did not feel fully
healed, healed. And some days itwas hard, because you have to
essentially go against yourbodily sensations, which just
makes you feel freaking crazy.
(33:13):
And go no, I'm great. I'mawesome. Like, I would go up the
stairs like pretending I waswith my friends like with a cup
of wine laughing like, Oh, I'mgreat. I feel fine. Like it
sounds so silly and stupid. Butover time, I ended up walking
completely out of that braincondition within like, I think
90 days of being really focus ofreciting affirmations reciting
(33:33):
prayer, going against it doingeverything that was kind of
creating the, the pain I wouldlike, just do it more. It sounds
super weird. I know. And I justkept kept believing it was going
to be gone. And in time itcompletely dissipated. And I
have no idea what it was. Don'tcare to know. But I I was just
like, I can't do this becauseJohn Hopkins is also quite quite
(33:55):
expensive after a while
Arwen Bardsley (33:58):
Sure. Wow, that's incredible story. Okay,
so there was something I wasgonna ask you, then it's gone
anyway, might come back. But Iknow that I did myself your
thinking traps quiz that is onyour website. So I just wondered
(34:21):
if you can perhaps talk a bitabout what thinking traps are?
Are there some that are morecommon than others? And if
anything comes up, I can tellyou what my now.
Liz Louis (34:34):
Oh, sure. Do you want to start with that when
Arwen Bardsley (34:36):
you weren't?
Sure. Well, we'll actually whydon't you just say in general,
what thinking traps are first?
Liz Louis (34:43):
Sure. So a lot of therapy doesn't work. Cognitive
behavior therapy has been provento be the most effective at a
70% success rate. So like holdthat loosely. And what the
cognitive hypnotherapy says isthat we all have automatic
thoughts that just come to uslike They're just reactionary.
And when there are negativeautomatic thoughts, they're
(35:04):
called cognitive distortions isthe jargon. The slang can be
thinking traps, thinking,thinking, toxic thinking. And so
it's your dysfunctional way ofthinking that's automatic. And
there's about 17 categories, youcould say, like all or nothing,
shooting yourself, which is justfun to say, I'll be honest.
discounting the positives,mislabeling labeling thoughts
(35:24):
are true. And so it's just kindof more of an overarching
umbrella. And then you canfigure out which one you
struggle with the most at theend of the day. We all have
cognitive distortions, and noone makes sense with 95% of our
thoughts being the same everysingle day and 80% being
negative. So this is like noharm. But you're if you start to
get aware of what your automaticthinking patterns are, you can
(35:46):
actually start to identify yourcore beliefs, which are at the
end of the day, the route tothose automatic thoughts, which
is really helpful. And if ourthoughts are gonna be the same
every single day, well, might aswell get ahead of it, instead of
being super surprised by it. AndI have seen a commonality. So I
do, I used to do psychometrictesting. I'm a personality
theories expert. And so Istarted to quantify, like, what
(36:08):
my clients were saying in theirresults with their personality
type, or their temperament type.
And so if you're highlyconscientious meaning like you,
like you like rules, you'remoralistic, you probably are
going to struggle withperfectionism, and you're gonna
have a lot of should and all ornothing thinking tied to it.
I've seen yet where there's youmay. That was a big one. That
(36:28):
was a big one. And I've alsoseen where, like, labeling or
mislabeling. So essentially, youknow, you meet a person, once
they do something, and bam,you've just given them a label
finite, is really popular withcertain personalities, that are
a little bit more dominant andaggressive and almost critical
(36:49):
sounding at times. discountingthe positives is also a really
big one that can come across forpeople who struggle with rigid
rules or might struggle with alittle bit of pessimism and
depression, as well, becausethey're focused focusing on how
you know that one thing was off,right? Like you got all A's but
this one class, you got it. Yougot an A minus, so you must be a
(37:13):
loser now.
Arwen Bardsley (37:15):
Yeah, good.
Yeah. That wasn't one of mine.
Liz Louis (37:22):
And then I will say if only if you struggle with
jealousy and bitterness.
Arwen Bardsley (37:27):
If only I found that one Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
So my other ones were blame wasan 8.5. And emotional reasoning.
Now, that was one that I'd loveyou to talk a bit more about.
Liz Louis (37:43):
Emotional reasoning is essentially where you,
whatever that emotion that'skind of over overwhelming you is
how you make decisions. So wereally need to be making
decisions as with our values,because our feelings and our
emotions can change so much. Andso emotions are just kind of
like where you are consumed byyour emotional thoughts, and you
(38:03):
use them to make decisions orjudgments about a situation if
that makes sense.
Arwen Bardsley (38:08):
Oh, yeah. And blame that might have been when
you lost me?
Liz Louis (38:13):
Oh, yes, blaming.
Yeah. Blaming is a fun one. I'vestruggled with that one to
blaming is sometimes when weessentially we blame other
people for for our issues,right? Like you, and it's not
even other people. Sometimes itcan be blaming yourself. And
it's really denying your role inthe situation like maybe you
(38:34):
say, if only younger, younger, Iwould have a better job. So
you're almost making excuses tothings versus taking
accountability. Now, sometimesthere is no accountability, but
it's wanting to find anobjective, concrete reason to
why things aren't going the wayyou would prefer. Does that make
sense? Like we need thatconcrete reasoning.
Arwen Bardsley (38:56):
So something that you said before, we even
got into the thinking traps, butthen it's come back up again,
with what you've said there is.
I guess my question is aroundhonoring when you are feeling a
negative emotion, like, youknow, you are feeling angry, or
(39:16):
you are feeling sad, you know, Ido think it's important for
people to give those so callednegative emotions, their space
as well. So how do you kind ofbalance and juggle that so that
you don't, I guess, get trappedin in that and constantly
repeating it, but you do letyourself feel that for however,
(39:39):
whatever period of time isappropriate?
Liz Louis (39:46):
Yeah, that's a great question. So first, just to kind
of separate allowing space fornegative emotions and thinking
traps which kind of fall intothat negative, dysfunctional
thinking. The thinking traps aregoing to be that automatic like
nanosecond. scenario and so it'snot necessarily going to be
truth. It's just kind of theperspective or the meaning that
you're making out of life tokind of give yourself a
(40:07):
reasoning. When you're angry,when you're even sad or scared,
or frustrated, or feel shamed,or whatever it is, it's so much
better, like you're saying toaddress it and drink it away,
smoke it away, sex it away,whatever it might be. And
really, the best thing to do, alot of people might not like,
(40:29):
like the answer, because it'snot fun. But it's sitting with
it. It's practicing radicalacceptance and mindfulness where
you're not judging yourself,you're observing yourself,
you're you're you know, I liketo tell people you know, find a
safe space in your home orsomewhere where you can just
kind of breathe and not bebothered for a little bit. And
then internally, just imagineyourself at a park or something
(40:52):
and go sit on the bench in yourbrain, or be a fly on the wall
and just observe the thoughts. Ilove to journal. I've been
journaling since I was six. Sothis is where I'll journal
things. And I again, putting onthat Sherlock mindset, you know,
explore them curious withcuriosity, be curious, don't be
judging, don't be like, This ishow I have to be. I mean, we all
(41:12):
have weird thoughts andsensations and feelings. And
nobody can say it's right orwrong. At the end of the day,
that's really quite unfair, youmight have some dysfunction in
the thinking for sure. I mean,that's, that would be fair. But
what I like to tell people isreally allow yourself to
experience it and feel it, doyour best to kind of keep it to,
you know, at least a 48 hourperiod. I only say that because
(41:34):
you don't want to ruminate andallow it to breathe to brew and
and take over you. It's, we gotto be tough, and I say things
that sometimes annoy people andunderstand that, but sometimes
you just got to toughen up, andyou got to just choose to make
the decision to let it go.
Easier said than done. By allmeans. Especially when it comes
to forgiveness. But it's whenyou're at a place where you're
(41:57):
like, Okay, I can hold this andthe intensity, maybe you want to
rate the intensity of on a oneto 10 scale, I feel this emotion
right here. And then you exploreit, you're curious with it,
maybe it gets down to a lowernumber than I tell people is
like, what was the blessing?
What was the benefit? what didthat teach you? Because at the
end of the day, every situationis like a seed, and it contains
(42:20):
both negative and positiveelements. Now, you can't think
on two things. At the same time.
You can't think about the pastand the future simultaneously.
You can't think of a grasshopperand a peanut simultaneously. So
this is where I say like, nowlet's just focus on the
positives. What did it teachyou? What did you learn from it?
How did it grow you? How are youbetter from it, and find that
positive, optimistic spin andit's there, you might have to
(42:42):
bring up like, a nanoscope tosee it, but it's there, but
whatever you focus on in thebrain, it will grow.
Arwen Bardsley (42:50):
Yeah, yeah.
Thank you for that. And youmentioned just briefly before
something about personalitytraits. So is there any easy way
that you think people can cometo understand their personality
traits, and, you know, use themto their advantage, or, you
know, train themselves intodifferent personality traits? Is
(43:15):
that even possible?
Liz Louis (43:18):
It is. So by the time you're 10 months, your
personality starts to show andyour personality is half nature,
half nurture. And don't take meliteral and a half and half
because things can obviouslychange, we know the brain can
change. So I have a freeassessment called performance
development assessment thatscores you in 23 personality
traits. And you get a PDF thatexplains each personality trait.
(43:41):
Because in certainorganizations, they use
psychometric testing to seelike, is your personality good
for this job position, and thenit's kind of shows you like
where you need to improve ordecrease based off of it. I
mean, I've helped financialadvisors just increase
recognition or decreaserecognition with their sales
(44:01):
which has increased at closingrate of 25%. So some of this is
just recalibrations. I mean, youdon't know what you don't know
type deal. So I think half thebattle is growing the awareness
and then being willing to seewhat you're doing which is can
be difficult for a lot of peopleand then tweaking it there. I
like linear thinking. So I liketo have really clear step by
step so I do share some thingsthat you can intentionally do
(44:23):
for instance, some peopleespecially the type a individual
has low flexibility or anyonewho's had a lot of trauma in
their past are going to have alittle bit more low flexibility.
And so if you want to grow yourflexibility and you want to be
intentional about it a you gotto be willing to become
uncomfortable because that'sgoing to be a reality to this.
(44:44):
And number two start saying yesto everything you can say yes
to. If you say should a lot,start catching yourself. So if
you say should a lot typicallythat means you're you're highly
conscientious isn't a bad thing,but sometimes that can bring a
lot of oppression on you becauseyou're trying to do life and
(45:05):
this yes or no right or wrongblack or white tendency, and
life is really gray at the endof the day. And so if you can
kind of like, take thatperfectionistic pressure off of
you, and be like, Okay, let mehold this a little bit loosely.
Do I want to do this? Or do Ifeel I have to do this and kind
of just allowing yourself somechoice and play area. I mean,
it's amazing how when you justkind of see things at a
(45:27):
different angle, you can learnso much more, and your
perspective can broaden. Sothat's ultimately what we're
trying to do is just find newand different ways of seeing and
doing things. And one of thebest ways is just starting with
your vocabulary and what youtalk about.
Arwen Bardsley (45:41):
Yeah, and what you tell yourself, so that, that
quizz is on your website, aswell as
Liz Louis (45:47):
Yes. Oh my gosh, you're gonna laugh at the link.
I didn't think about it when Iwrote it. So I do apologize. But
it's Elizabeth L-O-U-I-S.combackslash performance dev ass.
didn't think about it, guys,when I wrote it.
Arwen Bardsley (46:03):
That's okay. And something I meant to ask you
much earlier was, when you'retalking about trauma, I'm
assuming that this can be forpeople as well, you know, those
small t traumas, not the big Ttraumas, like having a brother
trying to kill you. Obviously,that is a trauma, but I'm
(46:25):
assuming that a lot of smallerthings that, you know, you may,
we may even have forgotten thesethings that occurred in our
childhood, or, you know, theymay be triggered by things that
happen in adult life, like, youknow, your, your best friend did
something bad to you inkindergarten, and you know, then
(46:47):
something happens at work. Andthat gets triggered. But I'm
assuming that whenever you'retalking, you've talked about
trauma that we can, you know,this they may be small t
traumas, as I like to call themrather than necessarily the huge
ones. Is that correct?
Liz Louis (47:05):
Yeah, I like to tell yes. I like to tell people
trauma spectrum at the end ofthe day, it's kind of like hate
to say this like rape is aspectrum too like, I think a lot
of times when people hear traumaand rape they go to like worst
case scenario that we'd like todepict it and if it's not that,
then it doesn't fall into thebucket. It's not fair narcissism
is a huge spectrum too. Andagain, it's it's it's your
(47:25):
perspective. So if you feel likesomething was traumatized, it's
not fair for anyone to belittleit because they didn't go
through it at the end of theday. When you're doing trauma,
too. You mentioned a few thingsthere that I just wanted to
highlight. Make sure you get ridof the bitterness the fastest
you can learn how to forgive andforgive quickly, the freer
(47:46):
you're going to be. The fact ofthe matter is, all humans mess
up. We all do stupid things.
We're all pretty effed up attimes, pardon my language there.
Everyone wants forgiveness, veryfew are willing to give it and
be mindful of your hypocriticalways of where you're like, I'm
so mad that they did this to me.
Meanwhile, you did somethingsimilar, if not the same thing
to another person. And get overyourself. Let it be. Let it go.
(48:09):
Move on, find the positive learnfrom it. Go again. Life is all a
learning experience. I mean, youlearn everything.
Arwen Bardsley (48:17):
Yeah, yeah.
Okay, great. Thank you for that.
Um, I just wanted to ask youwhat your thoughts are on
Neurofeedback as a way ofchanging our our brains.
Liz Louis (48:31):
Yeah. Neurofeedback is great. Neurobiofeedback is
awesome. All of that stuff. Youknow, there are so many tools in
today's world, that I think it'sunfair to say what works and
what doesn't work. Because Imean, the placebo effect is
really the most effective thingat the end of the day. So if you
believe it's going to work foryou, then do it. At the end of
(48:53):
the day, I mean, we've seen Imean, just to tell you like,
antidepressants are half a unitmore effective than therapy.
Yeah, I mean, half a unit, we'reeven talking about that, or I
think it's more half a unit moreeffective than placebo effect.
I'm so sorry. I mean, like, it'samazing what your brain can
create and do. So and just likeif you don't like your doctor,
(49:16):
the prescription they give youwill be less effective than if
you go to a doctor that youlike, and trust. So if you
believe it could help you tryit, I did it. I tried everything
that was willing that that mightwork, because it's like, I don't
know. And sometimes thingsdidn't work because I didn't
like the person providing theservice. Psychological safety is
going to be huge, especially ifyou've never had that imprinted
(49:39):
in your psyche as a child. So goto the places where you feel
safe. I mean, even in therapy,we found that talking to a
therapist or a best friend is nodifferent at the end of the day.
Now, I would encourage you tostop talking about the things
you hate and venting venting isactually really destructive to
the brain talking aboutnegativity is destructive to the
brain. And so when you start tospeak negativity, you can
(50:02):
actually create your irreparabledamage to you and the listener
at the end of the day. So Ialways tell people, and this is
what neuroscientist AndrewNewberg encouraged us to. He's a
neuroscientist fromPennsylvania, he says for every
one negative find three to fivepositives. And that's the ratio
at the end of the day to helpget your brain back into being
more of a healthy neurology. Andso again, it doesn't matter if
(50:24):
you go to a therapist or acoach, just go to someone who
can provide safety, a soundingboy or a board. Objective
thinking and isn't going to justjoin your boat for the sake of
joining your boat, but it'sgoing to challenge and help you
grow, and then be willing to dothe work, the only thing you can
control is your effort at theend of the day.
Arwen Bardsley (50:42):
So if you're in a situation where you are
venting about something, thenyou're just saying, Bring in
some positive stuff, as well.
Liz Louis (50:52):
I'm saying Don't vent about it. Everyone knows what
they don't like, what is talkingabout what you don't like really
going to do besides exacerbateand grow the anger and the
frustration. What you can do isbe proactive, okay, here's the
situation, I give my clientsfive to 10 minutes of care yet,
let's get it off our chest. Somepeople do just need to like be
heard and validated. That'sfair, there's a difference of
(51:14):
like, going on the merry goround of ruminating and kicking
the same point over and over andover again, telling me what you
don't like, and the person isgetting more and more aggressive
and angry because of it. versussaying, okay, great. This is
what you don't like, awesome. Ihear you. I'm sorry, that
happened? What do you want to doabout it? You want to keep
talking about how much you hatedit. Because that's not going to
do a darn thing at the end ofthe day, besides make you more
(51:35):
frustrated, more angry, morenegative? And so then we we
focus on what can we do aboutit? Okay, Sally, hurt your
feelings. Sorry, Sally hurt yourfeelings? Where is it in your
control that you maybe agreewith her when you didn't have
to? Where did you give her morepower where you didn't have to?
Where can we get you a littlebit more tough minded, you have
to be tough minded in life,unfortunately, I'm sorry. It's
(51:58):
not necessarily the funnestthing to hear. But you have to
become a little bit more toughminded and take accountability
to where you're responsible forcertain stuff, right? wrong or
indifferent. No one's mad atyou, and then make a concrete
plan to change to do the work toovercome it. Because it's very
easy for a human to tell youwhat they don't like, it's very
hard for humans to tell you whatthey do like sometimes.
Arwen Bardsley (52:20):
Yeah, okay. All right. Thank you for that. So
we're coming to the end,obviously, love for you to tell
us about your podcast, and alsoany other service offerings, any
specials that you've got at themoment that you want people to
know about.
Liz Louis (52:38):
So I can because we don't have that much time in
life at the end of the day. So Iwant to help give people
strategies to move forward. Andthen right now I have an online
self paced course called mindsetmastery. It goes through eight
modules with a bonus module, andit talks about every single
(53:01):
thing in a very actionable stepby step tangible plan to help
you create a strong mentalFoundation. Because what I found
is a lot of my clients weretrying to build a third Storey,
and I'm like, you don't evenhave a first storey, what are
you what's gonna hold up thethird storey like, we've got to
get this strong foundation,sturdy before you can go up and
up and up? And so that's exactlywhat mindset mastery does is it
(53:24):
teaches you exactly how to buildthat strong mindset, how to make
decisions, how to have healthyself talk, how to shift your
thinking how to speakeffectively, because that's huge
in relationships, and really,how to just transform your life
to something more positive andhopeful. So you can continue to
build on it. Because I don'tthink we ever fully like Master
master our mindsets, becausewe're always evolving and
(53:46):
growing. And so it's like, howdo we get to that next level,
and just get really further fromthe dock at the end of the day?
Because I think that's what mostpeople want is like, get me out
of this place. I want totransform. And so it's a linear
application to transformation.
Arwen Bardsley (54:00):
Okay, great. So and just say your website again
for everyone?
Liz Louis (54:05):
Oh, yes. Elizabeth L-O-U-I-S.com.
Arwen Bardsley (54:08):
Okay. And so the, the quizzes are on there,
as well as the course that youjust mentioned, and lots of
other information as well.
Liz Louis (54:18):
Yes, exactly.
Arwen Bardsley (54:19):
And your podcast is on all the podcast platforms?
Liz Louis (54:22):
Yes, it is. It is. It is for sure.
Arwen Bardsley (54:25):
All right, wonderful. Well, I really
appreciate your time today Liz,and was a really fun
conversation. Lots ofinformation for people to wrap
their minds around. And thankyou so much for coming on.
Liz Louis (54:43):
Thank you so much.
Arwen for having me. You hadsome awesome questions. You were
terrific. Host This was so muchfun.
Arwen Bardsley (54:50):
All right. Take care Liz.
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