May 9, 2024 • 34 mins
Embark on an enlightening exploration of self-awareness and personal growth in this episode of the Two Piers Podcast, hosted by Erica D'Eramo with special guest Kamini Wood. Delve into Kamini's inspiring journey from feeling like an outsider to becoming an international best-selling author and founder of Live Joy Your Way. Discover the importance of intersectionality in understanding identity and experiences, as Erica and Kamini discuss overcoming false beliefs, nurturing self-compassion, and embracing curiosity for growth. Tune in for insightful conversations that will empower you to rewrite your own narrative and live authentically.
To connect with Kamini, you can visit her website at www.kaminiwood.com or find her on social media via Instagram, Facebook, or LinkedIn.
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Episode Transcript
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Erica D'Eramo (00:05):
Hello and welcome to the Two Piers podcast. I'm
your host Erica D'Eramo. Todaywe have guest joining us, Kamini
Wood. She's the founder and CEOof Live Joy Your Way and the
AuthenticMe RiseUp Program. Aninternational best selling
author, her mission is to guideher clients in nurturing their
mental, emotional, physical andstrategic plans for their lives.
(00:28):
Recognising the profound impactof self leadership and inner
dialogues on external outcomes.
She works collaboratively withher clients to address both
external goals and challenges aswell as the internal responses,
thoughts and behaviors that mayhinder their desired results.
Internal obstacles that get inthe way include lack of
boundaries, people pleasing overgiving over functioning, hyper
(00:49):
achievement, perfectionism,procrastination, burnout, self
doubt and impostor syndrome, aswell as other false beliefs
about self. Some of our favoritetopics to discuss here at Two
Piers. company is based out ofNorth Carolina, but serves
clients all over the worldvirtually. And we are very
excited to have her come talk tous today and explore this
(01:11):
concept of maybe self compassionor false beliefs, all of these
different barriers that get inthe way of us achieving our
goals.
So happy to have you join us,Kamini.
Kamini Wood (01:31):
Thank you, Erica.
And thank you for having me. I'mexcited to be here with you.
Erica D'Eramo (01:37):
Yeah, I found you know, your, your journey and
your background to be reallyinteresting, I love the topics
that you work on. These aretopics that are very close to
our heart here at Two Piers. Sobefore we kind of get started,
in your own words, can you justshare with us what your origin
story is, like what led to theKamini that we have before us
(01:57):
today?
Kamini Wood (01:59):
Absolutely. So the Kamini that sits before you did
not get here by taking a linearpath. I, you know, was brought
up I'm going to start with my myorigin origin story. So I grew
up in suburban town inConnecticut, predominantly white
town. My parents are firstgeneration, I'm first generation
American, they were immigrants.
My parents came here, my mom was13, my dad was about 19. And we
(02:20):
ended up settling in Connecticutwas my sister and I growing up
in our household. And, you know,I mentioned it was predominantly
white not because to create, youknow, this divert, you know,
that this distinction betweenraces, but instead it was just
recognizing that as a littlegirl growing up in a, in a
school that tended to be a placewhere I looked different, and
(02:45):
clearly had a different soundingname than most other people. As
my five or six year old self, Iknew that I wasn't exactly quote
unquote, the same and so my, myyounger self tried to find ways
to fit in. And the way that Idid that was by people pleasing
and by kind of trying to be allthe things to all people so that
they would accept me and I havethat sense of belonging. Now my
(03:08):
younger self didn't know thatthat's what what I was doing.
But that's how I solve thatsituation for myself. And also,
I mentioned my parents beingimmigrants, they definitely had
a very strong work ethic and,and performance ethic. And so
for them, there was a lot oftime that they were they spent
working and and as a young,young individual watching them,
one of the things that I Ireally took on was this idea of
(03:30):
I did not want to be a burden,because I knew that they were
working really hard. And sothat's where not only so that
people pleasing came from asocial perspective. But that
perfectionism for me personallycame from that that idea of not
wanting to be a burden. Again, Ishare this because it is really
part of how I ended up heretoday. I took all of those
things with me throughout myyounger years into adulthood,
(03:52):
not really knowing that theywere operating in the
background. And, you know, froma professional standpoint, I
ended up as a project managerand then ran a project
management office and every rolethat I was in, I kept leaning
into talking to people aboutwhat they needed in order to
grow and expand and to besuccessful in their own right.
So professionally, I was reallyenjoying that aspect of my work.
(04:14):
But at the same time,personally, I became the mom to
five, and my middle daughter,actually at the time. So this
was about seven No, it was morelike eight years ago, she
started showing a lot of peoplepleasing and perfectionist
tendencies. And it was throughmy children that I saw their
behavior, my behaviors are beingmirrored back to me, right? They
(04:37):
were my catalyst I often totallyI own and say that my children
are my greatest teachers. Butwith that, having being mirrored
back to me, I recognized Ineeded to do some work because I
was not only showing up as aperfectionist and the people
pleaser, I was also holdingmyself back. And so I did that
self work and I went through theThe tough moments of self
(05:00):
awareness, so that I could showup differently as a mom. But I
say that I went through thatexperience, because what that
allowed me to do is say, I cannow take this experience, and I
can actually help other peoplewho have maybe had similar
experiences, or are experiencingthose false beliefs, like, you
know, I have to people, pleasein order to belong, or I have to
(05:20):
be perfect, because otherwiseI'll be a burden. Or I have to
be perfect, because, you know,people will see me as a failure,
whatever those limiting beliefsare, I can now take those that
experience with that, take myprofessional acumen of really
hearing people and activelylistening to them, I can combine
them together and create thispractice that I have now, which
is truly serving people one toone.
Erica D'Eramo (05:43):
Yeah, as you kind of go through your story, I'm
sure that that's going toresonate with a lot of
individuals listening to this.
And it's, it's another reminderabout the importance of taking
this intersectional view of howwe're all operating in the
world, because it wasn't justabout gender, right. And it
wasn't just about your heritage,or you know, how many
(06:07):
generations had been here, itwas all it was how all of these
factors combined into theinfluences that you saw. So
really interesting perspectivethat I think could resonate with
a lot of different livedexperiences.
Kamini Wood (06:23):
I love what you just said, the intersection of
all of these parts, because I dothink that we tend to think it's
one thing and not recognizingthat all of these different
pieces and parts intertwineintersect, I love your word,
they intersect to create how weare showing up in our life. And
when we can recognize that andgive it space, we can actually
(06:47):
then move through what we needto.
Erica D'Eramo (06:49):
Yeah, I mean, we're gonna give a shout out to
Kimberlee Crenshaw, here for heror in intersectionality and
coining that term way back whenthe legal scholar Kimberlee
Crenshaw, so I don't want to beStolen Valor there. But yes,
it's a really, it's a reallyimportant concept that I think,
especially in this work, whereyou mentioned, you know, why
(07:09):
you're bringing up like growingup in a white, predominantly
white area of Connecticut. And Iknow that these days, there is a
lot of discourse around divisionand us versus them, and we want,
you know, we want less of that.
And also our identitiesfundamentally do shape our
experiences and how others havetreated us and how we've
(07:32):
navigated the world. So I thinkit is an important, an important
piece of the story. Yeah.
Kamini Wood (07:40):
Yeah. Yeah. And to that point to talking about it
reduces shame around it, right?
Because if we continue to say,well, we don't want that. And we
keep running away from justconversations that include it,
or also, in some sense,contributing to internalized
shame.
Erica D'Eramo (07:58):
Yeah, I mean, as coaches, that's something we
like to explore, right, likebringing curiosity to these
conversations. If there's adiscomfort, like, let's look,
let's look a little more.
Because we want to integrate allof this not compartmentalize and
divide. And, and
Kamini Wood (08:17):
Yes.
Erica D'Eramo (08:17):
...and put it away.
Kamini Wood (08:18):
Yeah, absolutely.
Erica D'Eramo (08:20):
So tell me a little bit about what drew you
to the work that you're doing.
You mentioned your daughterbeing, you know, somewhat of a
catalyst. Tell me a little bitmore about what made this like
your life's work?
Kamini Wood (08:32):
That's such a great question, because she was a
catalyst. And now I will saythat she was a catalyst to my
own awakenings around how I washolding myself back and what
limiting beliefs I was carrying.
I do believe that that alsoshaped me into a more conscious
parent, as a side note, but thereason they're the way that this
really drew me in was when Iwent through that self awareness
(08:54):
and understood myself on thatdeeper level. Not only did I
recognize how I could now showup differently, but it was sort
of this calling of thisexperience is happening in order
for you to pay this forward.
Right? It's, it's, it's almostrecognizing that life is a
(09:16):
journey that's happening throughus, not to us. And so I can now
take this experience that I'vehad and take my journey that
maybe has taken me severalyears, and I can help support
people so that maybe they can gothrough the journey, not in it.
We don't truncate it to like,you know, minutes or weeks. But
(09:36):
we can, I can certainly take theexperience and I can support
other people on their journey totheir self awareness and self
understanding. Because reallywhat I felt was, what I learned
was that so many of us eithertry to pathologize or to
diagnose like, this is what'swrong with me. And instead it's
like, oh, wow, if I just givemyself permission to understand
(09:56):
myself, I can I suddenly havethis path. way of being able to
move myself forward instead ofjust being stagnant or stuck in
a certain box or label that I'vesort of just assimilated and
taken on this mind.
Erica D'Eramo (10:10):
Right. Yeah, I really love that framing.
Because sometimes we justcompound the very issue of being
able to trust ourselves andbuild more confidence when we
beat up on ourselves about thepatterns and behaviors that are
probably there for a goodreason, right? They've served us
in the past, they've kept ussafe in the past, maybe now
they're not as effective, likeour operating system from 2000
(10:34):
Probably shouldn't be ouroperating system for 2024. We'll
do some upgrades. But like,fundamentally, I think we see a
lot with women in particular,around the narrative of imposter
syndrome, right? We even theyeven took the word or the the
term that was initially coinedimposter phenomenon, like an
(10:55):
observed set of behaviors incontext, and then pathologized
it to be a syndrome that we haveto fix, rather than this being
like a logical response to oursurroundings.
Kamini Wood (11:11):
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's such a great point. I
think that we do that a lot withmany things. We call them
syndromes, suddenly, now,they're, you know, diagnoses or
pathologies, that we've got tosuddenly go fix and, right,
better.
Erica D'Eramo (11:26):
Which then compounds, this whole issue of
constantly trying to changeourselves adapt perfect, right?
Like it's feeding into thatexact Absolutely. pattern that
we're trying to break. So tellus a little bit about, I mean,
we mentioned talking throughself compassion, how do you
define self compassion? Like,what does that mean to you?
Kamini Wood (11:47):
Mean? Yeah, so I really, I love Kristin Neff and
Chris Germer, who are kind ofresearchers on self compassion.
And so I really follow howKristin describes it, which is
the very first thing when we'retalking about self compassion is
the concept of kindness overjudgment. And so how I describe
that is recognizing that we willmake choices or decisions in our
(12:11):
throughout the course of ourlives. And there will be moments
where maybe we look at that andsay, Okay, that was a mistake,
or that did not turn out the waythat I wanted it to, instead of
going into this place of what'swrong with me, why what why did
I choose that I'm, you know, anidiot for doing that. It's
leaning into kindness, like,wow, Okay, that did not turn out
the way that I wanted it to?
What did I learn? How can I growfrom this? Where do I choose to
(12:33):
go now? Which is, you know, whenwe think about judgment, so
often, I think, especially highachievers, almost convinced
themselves, that it's thejudgment that that will catapult
them and continue to move themforward. I know, I absolutely
believe that, you know, if Ibeat myself up, and I'll, it'll
push me it'll inspire me to dobetter, when in fact, what
(12:54):
happens is, it may push you forthe short amount of time, but
eventually it plateaus. Becausewe we actually will burn
ourselves out, when we start towhen we start to believe that,
you know, there's somethingwrong with us. So when Kristin
Neff talks about kindness overjudgment, it really is saying,
even if something doesn't go theway that we want it to, we will
(13:14):
use kindness over judgment. Thesecond part of it is that common
human humanity part where it isrecognizing we're not isolated
in our experiences. But instead,we are part of this idea of
common humanity, where otherpeople have had similar
experiences to what what we haveexperienced as well. And so we
can actually lean on otherpeople to say, you know, to ask
(13:38):
them, share your experience withme, be with me in this rather
than I have to I'm isolated onmy own. And then the third part
of self compassion ismindfulness being in this
moment, right here. And now.
Because so often, we spend ourdays either ruminating over the
past or we're worrying about thefuture. And self compassion
says, we can recognize that andalso come back to the present
(14:01):
moment. Where am I right now?
And what would be the bestchoice for me in this moment
moving forward?
Erica D'Eramo (14:07):
Yeah, I love that. I mean, so I just recently
finished an article on handlingnegative self talk like self
criticality, and so much of whatyou're talking about right now
is resonating a lot with thattopic. Because we, yeah, a lot
of high achievers have becomevery used to that voice, that
(14:27):
critical, negative voice. Andsometimes that voice again, kept
us safe, right? Like it waswatching out for us. It was
keeping us away from theguardrails. Sometimes it was
replicating the voices of theadults and people in power in
our lives. And so when thosevoices maybe we went off to
(14:47):
college, right, we didn't havethose voices right in our air
anymore. So we replicated it.
But there's a point at which wekind of realized like, maybe,
maybe this is not actually goingto advance me forward. as
effectively or efficiently as wewant. And also, this is gonna be
from somebody who doesn't havechildren. But I feel like when I
(15:08):
see small beings, I can look atthem and think like, I would
never want somebody to speak tothat small child who is worthy
of love and care the way I havespoken to myself, right?
Kamini Wood (15:24):
Yes, yes. Yeah, I love that. You just said that.
Because oftentimes people willget stuck on I don't know how to
be compassionate to myself,because it's so unknown. And
that's a great way to lean intothat, which is, if you were
speaking to a small child, or afriend or a loved one, what
would you say? And then offeryourself the same? The same
(15:47):
verbiage, the same, you know,compassion, the same empathy
that you would offer to thoseindividuals?
Erica D'Eramo (15:55):
Yeah. Because even the tough ones, right?
Sometimes we're like, Well, I'm,but I'm tough, like, I can be
tough on myself, it's fine. Ihave really high standards for
myself, you can have really highstandards for other people as
well and still treat them withrespect and compassion.
Kamini Wood (16:10):
Exactly. And to that point too that brings up
another point of pushback thatI'll get with self compassion,
which is, well, I do have highstandards. I do have high
standards. And if I'mcompassionate to myself that my
standards will drop.
Erica D'Eramo (16:23):
Yeah.
Kamini Wood (16:24):
And that's just that is definitely a limiting or
false belief where it's, it'snot your it's not the judgment
that had the highest standards,you already had the highest
standards, you can stillabsolutely have them, it's how
do you relate to those highstandards? Do you judge yourself
through them? Or do you continueto support yourself through
kindness and compassion, andcontinue to hold you don't have
(16:46):
to give up those high standardsin order to be compassionate to
yourself?
Erica D'Eramo (16:49):
Yeah, I think it was a book I read recently
called Chatter. I'm trying toremember the author, but it's
about like, sort of our internaldialogue. And they were talking
about some polling that they haddone with parents around who had
kids who were athletes, andasking, you know, if you have a
coach, who is always likescreaming and yelling, and
(17:14):
pushing your kid with, you know,negativity, would you prefer
that? Or would you prefer thecoach who like pushes your kid
hard, but with compassion, andcuriosity, and most parents,
even the ones who really wantedtheir kids just to, to excel,
recognize that the second optionwas more likely to lead to
(17:37):
excelling, performance. And itwasn't just about being nice. It
was also about performance that,you know, if you can remove
yourself from the situation andlook at it more objectively, you
can see that just negativity andharshness does not is not the
formula for high performance forover the long term. Yeah,
Kamini Wood (17:57):
Over the long term.
Exactly. Exactly. Yeah.
Erica D'Eramo (18:01):
So you mentioned false beliefs. Tell us a little
bit more about that, because I'mnot sure that everyone is
familiar with the term falsebeliefs. So what does that mean
to you?
Kamini Wood (18:10):
Yeah, I think a lot of people if they've heard of
it, termed a different way, theywill maybe have heard of
limiting beliefs or what I callfalse beliefs are the main ones,
which are I'm not I'm notenough, or I'm not good enough.
I'm unlovable is another one, Iam not worthy, or I'm unworthy,
undeserving, that one pops up alot as well. Those would be I
(18:34):
would say, examples of thosefalse beliefs and those beliefs.
Like for me, my example was, Idon't belong, right. And so
that, that, as I mentioned, thatled to the people pleasing
behaviors, why because that'show I compensated for that false
belief in order to work throughthat. But what happens with
these false beliefs is they'realmost like the foundational
(18:55):
wound, if we want to call itthat, and parts of ourselves,
then they they try to deal withthat foundational wound by
protecting us from it. But whathappens is if we don't pay
attention and unveil and becomeaware of what the false belief
is, we're kind of just coveringup with it with layers of other
things. And so the work that Ido with clients is, you know, in
(19:18):
a very loving trauma informedtrauma sensitive way is helping
them become aware of what thosefalse beliefs are, because once
we're aware of it, and we'veacknowledged what it is now we
can take committed action tomove ourselves through what is
actually true, like for for me,for instance, I will say that
the the belief the false beliefof I don't belong, it may still
(19:39):
pop its head up. Like I willgive an example My sons are
really into lacrosse, lacrossehappens to be still a very
predominantly white sport. Iwalk into a room or into onto a
field I should say, I walked tothe field and most of the
parents again, I look differentthan most of the parents that
are there. I'm not saying it'sacross the board, just
predominantly, you And I willsay that that belief might pop
(20:02):
up. But because I've done thiswork, I now can see it,
acknowledge it. And then I canwork through it with looking at
my own value system, looking atwhat I actually know is true
about myself. And I can takecommitted action to engage with
those parents in a totallydifferent way than I, then I
would have, you know, eight ornine years ago when I was still
carrying that false beliefcompletely unaware that that's
(20:23):
what was running the show.
Erica D'Eramo (20:26):
Yeah, there's this, this kind of framework
that, and I'm not sure if thiscame up in your kind of coaching
realm or training, but it wasreally eye opening for me, going
through coaching, training, andlooking at and I'm trying to
remember, like, what theframework is actually called
right now. But essentially it,it posits that beliefs lead to
(20:49):
our feelings, which then lead toour actions, which then lead to
the results. So we can start atany point in that chain. But
people often forget that thereis some underlying core belief
that is driving the feeling thatthey're having about the
situation that then drives theiraction, which then drives the
(21:09):
outcome. So if we're, if wedon't like what the outcome is
that we're getting, Okay, well,then what is the action that
we're doing that's contributingto that? Okay, why are we doing
that? Because we feel a certainway we're motivated, we have
some energy around it. And wheredid that come from? That always
comes from the core beliefstructure, which we almost
always take for granted. Becauseit's like part of the air we're
(21:31):
breathing. So...
Kamini Wood (21:33):
Yes, because that's what's running on the
subconscious level. It's theautopilot. It's the it's the
narrative, you know, that wehear this all the time and coach
speak, which is you can changeyour narrative, you rewrite your
own story, a lot of coaches willsay that, because that's what
really is happening. It's thenarrative that we've operated
with, to use your term, it's theoperating system. And we get to
make the choice, whether we wantto continue using that operating
(21:56):
system, or whether we're readyfor the upgrade, and we're ready
to do the work to upgrade thenarrative or the operating
system that we've been using.
Erica D'Eramo (22:03):
Right? Because rewiring our beliefs is not an
easy task. It's yeah. buildingawareness, right. And building
awareness around stuff is noteven an easy task. That's like,
building in this neural musclememory that takes time takes
practice. Yes, yeah. So tell usa little bit more about how some
(22:26):
of these, you know, either falsebeliefs or false narratives or
limiting beliefs, maybe keep us,keep us stagnated, or keep us
stuck where we're at?
Kamini Wood (22:37):
Well, again, if that's the operating system that
we're using, right, everythingis being filtered through that
belief. So let's takeAdvancement at work. For
instance, if we have a falsebelief of I'm not, I'm not good
enough, running underneath, it'skind of running behind the
scenes, then every time that weare potentially given an
opportunity to put ourselves infor a promotion, that that's
(22:59):
going to maybe hold us back fromtaking that step forward.
Because the belief behind thescenes is I'm not good enough.
So unless we're willing to dothat work, that is an example of
how we can stay stagnant, we'renot going to grow and push
ourselves or give ourselvespermission to to rise up to the
next level. Oftentimes, we talkabout my book, our potential,
and it's I want to live in to myhighest potential. Well, in
(23:22):
order to do that, we need tolook at what could be
potentially holding us back andthat, that, generally speaking,
are those false beliefs, becausethey are running the show behind
the scenes. You know, my mybiggest, you know, between not
wanting to be a burden, andpeople pleasing, what was
actually happening was I wasworrying about everybody else in
my world. And I wasn't payingattention to what my own needs
(23:44):
were, or even what I actuallydesired. Once I gave myself
permission to look at that, Irealized that wow, I while I
love, for instance, running myhusband's law, practice in terms
of being able to say, this isgreat, you're getting to, you
know, you're living your dream,this is what you've always
wanted. And it's great workingwith the individuals that are
here, what I actually want to dois I want to be able to help
(24:06):
people one to one, like Iactually want to be able to step
into the forefront and, and ownmy own practice and be able to
do the thing that I'm actuallyreally passionate about. That
was holding me back because Ibelieved that I needed to make
sure everybody else was Okay,first was the one that was
holding me back. So that's justanother example of how our
(24:27):
belief systems can hold us back.
Erica D'Eramo (24:30):
Yeah, I mean, using examples is really
probably the only way to goabout this conversation because
it's so varied and unique toeach individual, which is why
working with a coach can be sohelpful, right? Because it takes
this exploratory work ofquestioning and it's not like
somebody can tell you juststraight up oh, I I'm not gonna
(24:51):
put in for that promotionbecause I don't think I'm
capable. And then for you to beable to just say to them, well,
that's incorrect. You know,like, you would never say that
as poach, never just say, Well,you're wrong, you would explore
because there might be a varietyof different ways that they
think or believe that or itmight actually be factually
correct based on something. Andthat doesn't mean that tomorrow
(25:14):
you won't be qualified for it.
So like, what do we need to doto get there? But yeah, each,
each person has such a uniquemixture of experiences and core
beliefs that there's no one sizefits all on this.
Kamini Wood (25:28):
So yeah, exactly, exactly.
Erica D'Eramo (25:31):
So what are some of the ways that you debunk
false beliefs? Is there? I mean,is there a way? Is this a trick
question? I don't know. Or,like, is this a reasonable
question to ask?
Kamini Wood (25:43):
Well, I think it absolutely is a reasonable
question to ask, because I thinkthat's the work that that, you
know, as coaches, I think,different depending on what type
of coaches we are, you know,that's what we're kind of up
against is helping our clientssee things in a different way,
in terms of my work with thefalse beliefs about self, which
is where I kind of focus interms of recognizing that the
(26:04):
relationship with ourselves isthe foundational relationship
for anything that we want to doin our life. For for me, in
terms of my my work, and how Iapproach it is, you know, first
of all getting my client toactually get to the place where
they're able to see what thatcore belief is or what that
false belief is. Because oncethey're able to see it, and they
can acknowledge it, now we gointo work around, you know, what
(26:27):
do you know, is true aboutyourself outside of that belief?
You know, what, what are yourvalues, I think that that's a
really important thing for us totake, take into account when
we're when we're thinking aboutour core beliefs, and then take
those two things and recognizethat those two things are
actually what make us who weare, right? So often we think
(26:48):
that we are, again, we'reidentifying with the belief, and
instead it's moving identity,into our essence and our being.
And it's not the belief, justlike we say, we're not the
feeling we have or we're not thethought we're having, we're not
the belief, right? It's comingback home to Who am I really,
and then taking committed actionto live into that, that's the
(27:09):
only way to really debunk thebelief is to recognize what's
true about ourselves, come backhome to who we are as our inner
essence, we're looking at valuesthere, and then take committed
action to live into that,because what we're doing there
is we're, we're experiencing atotally different narrative.
It's one thing to say, I'm goingto change the narrative, but
again, action, right actionexperience is going to make our
(27:32):
system actually believe it andsee it differently.
Erica D'Eramo (27:36):
Yeah, I mean, this sounds like quite the
marketing challenge, to behonest, from like a business
perspective, to be able to, towork with the the folks who have
limiting beliefs, because we'reoften so unaware of our own
limiting beliefs that if youwere to say, like, hey, come
work with me, if you havelimiting beliefs, like people
(27:58):
are gonna be like, I don't haveany limiting beliefs. Right? So
how do you? How would peopleknow that they that they would
benefit from maybe coming tofind a coach, like yourself to
come work through some of this?
Kamini Wood (28:10):
You know, that you're absolutely right, they're
not going to necessarily knowit's limiting beliefs. It's how
we experience it through thesymptoms that we have, right? So
it's, it's the the individualswho recognize, like, wow, I'm
anxious all the time, I do notknow how to stop the anxiety,
I'm stressed out, I'm, I'mfeeling burnt out, I'm noticing
a lot of self doubt, right. I'mjust, I'm questioning myself all
the time. Those be greatinsights into there's something
(28:33):
going on here, I probably needsupport. And then that's why
coaches are important to havebecause then through that
process, the client can start tosee it for themselves. Because
again, if I come into asituation, or oh, this is a
limiting belief, it's not thethe person has to see it for
themselves, they have to havethat, that insight and awakening
(28:54):
for themselves. So we start withhow are you experiencing life?
And where what do you what areyou noticing? And where are
those those key points? Maybe Ihate to put it this way, but
those pain points, right, like,where are you? Maybe not, you
know, maybe maybe the pain pointis not feeling like you're
advancing at work, right? That'smaybe how you're experiencing
it. And then through theconversations that we're having,
(29:17):
and through the questions thatare being asked, they start to
build this insight forthemselves of like, oh, wow,
that's why and where this iscoming from. I'm now
understanding, I'm understandingmyself better. I'm understanding
kind of where this isoriginating from. And that's
when the the are able to makethe shifts that they need to
because the truth is, we canchange certain things at the
(29:39):
surface level. You know, a lotof people are like, Oh, well,
I'm feeling really anxious, soI'm just gonna meditate more. It
will help. It does. It doesn'tit definitely brings your stress
levels down. But then I'll haveclients who say, Yeah, I tried
meditation. It worked for alittle while and I'm still
having the issue like it's stillpopping back up, right because
we haven't done all
Erica D'Eramo (29:57):
the magnesium in the world, isn't it?
Kamini Wood (30:02):
Exactly, exactly.
Yeah.
Erica D'Eramo (30:04):
I take a bath of magnesium every night, but it's
not gonna fix the underlyingchallenge here. Yeah.
Kamini Wood (30:11):
Exactly, exactly.
Erica D'Eramo (30:13):
Yeah.
Kamini Wood (30:13):
Yeah.
Erica D'Eramo (30:14):
So. Okay, yeah, I think that that's also helpful
for anyone listening who's like,oh, this probably doesn't apply
to me. But I do love youremphasis there around, we can
just come in. And so maybe thisis a bit of, I'll put this out
there as a possible red flag tobe looking for if you work with
someone, and they say, like,well, that's a limiting belief.
(30:38):
And they start labeling yourbeliefs as limiting for you.
Because first of all, none of ushigh achievers want to be told
what we are and are not. That'sone way to get me to rebel
against you immediately is tojust start telling me and
labeling me and again,pathologizing, right. And we are
very perceptive. And so theremight be reasons that we are
(31:00):
choosing not to see certainthings, or acknowledge certain
discomforts and might be veryuncomfortable to look at. But
like shoving somebody's face init, or telling them that you
know, better what is going onwith them than they do is
completely disempowering andcounterproductive. So yes, I
think it can take some time. AndI love that the approach that
(31:22):
you mentioned, where people needto come to this in their own
time and see it, and beempowered by it themselves, and
opt into any of those changesthemselves and not be like,
shoved down the road, becauseyou're literally doing the
opposite of what we're trying todo, which is self empowerment.
Kamini Wood (31:40):
Yeah, exactly.
Exactly. The best metaphor Ihave is that teenagers, right,
if you tell them to clean theirroom, they're gonna be no not
going to but the moment thatit's their idea, and they're
like, No, I really think that Ineed to have less clutter in my
room. The room is spotless,right? So it's mean, honestly,
we just have to treat ourselvesthat same way where it's
recognizing that we, we can'tcome into it and say, This is
(32:00):
what's wrong with you. Andthat's why I really, I do veer
away from pathology, and I just,I constantly say, less
pathologizing moreunderstanding.
Erica D'Eramo (32:12):
Yes, yep.
Curiosity, what will beeffective here? That's, that's
one of my biggest questions.
What do you think would be mosteffective here? So I really
appreciate some of your insightshere today. How would you
summarize any key takeaways thatyou want listeners to retain
after the after they kind ofclose their play their podcast
(32:33):
player and have their littlemind wipe? What's What are some
of the key takeaways that theyshould retain after this
episode?
Kamini Wood (32:40):
Oh, gosh, that's a loaded question. I hope that
people walk away one, one veryimportant thing, which is that
there's nothing wrong with you.
Right? It's that instead, it istruly about giving yourself
permission to understandyourself on a deeper level. That
would be I think, number one,and number two, is, you know,
give yourself permission to getcurious with maybe what what are
those things that have beenholding me back? Right? Why? Why
(33:04):
am I feeling certain ways? Orwhy am I having the same?
Oftentimes, it's like the sameexperiences, why do I keep
feeling like I'm experiencingthe same thing? Get curious with
it. And that's why you know,we've talked about self
compassion, get curious and becompassionate, and just see if
there's, there's something tolearn through that. And then,
from there, be able to figureout what your next step is.
Erica D'Eramo (33:26):
Yeah. Like if we were a cat, right? You would?
What's going on here? Why are weusing a cat who can talk to you?
So if anyone wanted to learnmore about your offerings
connect with you? What's thebest way for them to do that?
Kamini Wood (33:44):
I'm on the web at kaminiwood.com And then social
media, Facebook, Instagram. Thathandles @itsauthenticme and I'm
also on LinkedIn, under my name.
Erica D'Eramo (33:54):
Excellent. Well, we will be including that in the
show notes. And in the littlesummary blog posts that we
include for each episode. And ifanyone is looking for the
transcript for this episode, youcan find that on our website as
well, which is two peersconsulting.com. We really
appreciate you coming on todayand sharing your insights. Thank
you so much Kamini.
Kamini Wood (34:13):
Thank you for having me. So appreciate it.
Hello and welcome to the Two Piers podcast. I'm
your host Erica D'Eramo. Todaywe have guest joining us, Kamini
Wood. She's the founder and CEOof Live Joy Your Way and the
AuthenticMe RiseUp Program. Aninternational best selling
author, her mission is to guideher clients in nurturing their
mental, emotional, physical andstrategic plans for their lives.
(00:28):
Recognising the profound impactof self leadership and inner
dialogues on external outcomes.
She works collaboratively withher clients to address both
external goals and challenges aswell as the internal responses,
thoughts and behaviors that mayhinder their desired results.
Internal obstacles that get inthe way include lack of
boundaries, people pleasing overgiving over functioning, hyper
(00:49):
achievement, perfectionism,procrastination, burnout, self
doubt and impostor syndrome, aswell as other false beliefs
about self. Some of our favoritetopics to discuss here at Two
Piers. company is based out ofNorth Carolina, but serves
clients all over the worldvirtually. And we are very
excited to have her come talk tous today and explore this
(01:11):
concept of maybe self compassionor false beliefs, all of these
different barriers that get inthe way of us achieving our
goals.
So happy to have you join us,Kamini.
Kamini Wood (01:31):
Thank you, Erica.
And thank you for having me. I'mexcited to be here with you.
Erica D'Eramo (01:37):
Yeah, I found you know, your, your journey and
your background to be reallyinteresting, I love the topics
that you work on. These aretopics that are very close to
our heart here at Two Piers. Sobefore we kind of get started,
in your own words, can you justshare with us what your origin
story is, like what led to theKamini that we have before us
(01:57):
today?
Kamini Wood (01:59):
Absolutely. So the Kamini that sits before you did
not get here by taking a linearpath. I, you know, was brought
up I'm going to start with my myorigin origin story. So I grew
up in suburban town inConnecticut, predominantly white
town. My parents are firstgeneration, I'm first generation
American, they were immigrants.
My parents came here, my mom was13, my dad was about 19. And we
(02:20):
ended up settling in Connecticutwas my sister and I growing up
in our household. And, you know,I mentioned it was predominantly
white not because to create, youknow, this divert, you know,
that this distinction betweenraces, but instead it was just
recognizing that as a littlegirl growing up in a, in a
school that tended to be a placewhere I looked different, and
(02:45):
clearly had a different soundingname than most other people. As
my five or six year old self, Iknew that I wasn't exactly quote
unquote, the same and so my, myyounger self tried to find ways
to fit in. And the way that Idid that was by people pleasing
and by kind of trying to be allthe things to all people so that
they would accept me and I havethat sense of belonging. Now my
(03:08):
younger self didn't know thatthat's what what I was doing.
But that's how I solve thatsituation for myself. And also,
I mentioned my parents beingimmigrants, they definitely had
a very strong work ethic and,and performance ethic. And so
for them, there was a lot oftime that they were they spent
working and and as a young,young individual watching them,
one of the things that I Ireally took on was this idea of
(03:30):
I did not want to be a burden,because I knew that they were
working really hard. And sothat's where not only so that
people pleasing came from asocial perspective. But that
perfectionism for me personallycame from that that idea of not
wanting to be a burden. Again, Ishare this because it is really
part of how I ended up heretoday. I took all of those
things with me throughout myyounger years into adulthood,
(03:52):
not really knowing that theywere operating in the
background. And, you know, froma professional standpoint, I
ended up as a project managerand then ran a project
management office and every rolethat I was in, I kept leaning
into talking to people aboutwhat they needed in order to
grow and expand and to besuccessful in their own right.
So professionally, I was reallyenjoying that aspect of my work.
(04:14):
But at the same time,personally, I became the mom to
five, and my middle daughter,actually at the time. So this
was about seven No, it was morelike eight years ago, she
started showing a lot of peoplepleasing and perfectionist
tendencies. And it was throughmy children that I saw their
behavior, my behaviors are beingmirrored back to me, right? They
(04:37):
were my catalyst I often totallyI own and say that my children
are my greatest teachers. Butwith that, having being mirrored
back to me, I recognized Ineeded to do some work because I
was not only showing up as aperfectionist and the people
pleaser, I was also holdingmyself back. And so I did that
self work and I went through theThe tough moments of self
(05:00):
awareness, so that I could showup differently as a mom. But I
say that I went through thatexperience, because what that
allowed me to do is say, I cannow take this experience, and I
can actually help other peoplewho have maybe had similar
experiences, or are experiencingthose false beliefs, like, you
know, I have to people, pleasein order to belong, or I have to
(05:20):
be perfect, because otherwiseI'll be a burden. Or I have to
be perfect, because, you know,people will see me as a failure,
whatever those limiting beliefsare, I can now take those that
experience with that, take myprofessional acumen of really
hearing people and activelylistening to them, I can combine
them together and create thispractice that I have now, which
is truly serving people one toone.
Erica D'Eramo (05:43):
Yeah, as you kind of go through your story, I'm
sure that that's going toresonate with a lot of
individuals listening to this.
And it's, it's another reminderabout the importance of taking
this intersectional view of howwe're all operating in the
world, because it wasn't justabout gender, right. And it
wasn't just about your heritage,or you know, how many
(06:07):
generations had been here, itwas all it was how all of these
factors combined into theinfluences that you saw. So
really interesting perspectivethat I think could resonate with
a lot of different livedexperiences.
Kamini Wood (06:23):
I love what you just said, the intersection of
all of these parts, because I dothink that we tend to think it's
one thing and not recognizingthat all of these different
pieces and parts intertwineintersect, I love your word,
they intersect to create how weare showing up in our life. And
when we can recognize that andgive it space, we can actually
(06:47):
then move through what we needto.
Erica D'Eramo (06:49):
Yeah, I mean, we're gonna give a shout out to
Kimberlee Crenshaw, here for heror in intersectionality and
coining that term way back whenthe legal scholar Kimberlee
Crenshaw, so I don't want to beStolen Valor there. But yes,
it's a really, it's a reallyimportant concept that I think,
especially in this work, whereyou mentioned, you know, why
(07:09):
you're bringing up like growingup in a white, predominantly
white area of Connecticut. And Iknow that these days, there is a
lot of discourse around divisionand us versus them, and we want,
you know, we want less of that.
And also our identitiesfundamentally do shape our
experiences and how others havetreated us and how we've
(07:32):
navigated the world. So I thinkit is an important, an important
piece of the story. Yeah.
Kamini Wood (07:40):
Yeah. Yeah. And to that point to talking about it
reduces shame around it, right?
Because if we continue to say,well, we don't want that. And we
keep running away from justconversations that include it,
or also, in some sense,contributing to internalized
shame.
Erica D'Eramo (07:58):
Yeah, I mean, as coaches, that's something we
like to explore, right, likebringing curiosity to these
conversations. If there's adiscomfort, like, let's look,
let's look a little more.
Because we want to integrate allof this not compartmentalize and
divide. And, and
Kamini Wood (08:17):
Yes.
Erica D'Eramo (08:17):
...and put it away.
Kamini Wood (08:18):
Yeah, absolutely.
Erica D'Eramo (08:20):
So tell me a little bit about what drew you
to the work that you're doing.
You mentioned your daughterbeing, you know, somewhat of a
catalyst. Tell me a little bitmore about what made this like
your life's work?
Kamini Wood (08:32):
That's such a great question, because she was a
catalyst. And now I will saythat she was a catalyst to my
own awakenings around how I washolding myself back and what
limiting beliefs I was carrying.
I do believe that that alsoshaped me into a more conscious
parent, as a side note, but thereason they're the way that this
really drew me in was when Iwent through that self awareness
(08:54):
and understood myself on thatdeeper level. Not only did I
recognize how I could now showup differently, but it was sort
of this calling of thisexperience is happening in order
for you to pay this forward.
Right? It's, it's, it's almostrecognizing that life is a
(09:16):
journey that's happening throughus, not to us. And so I can now
take this experience that I'vehad and take my journey that
maybe has taken me severalyears, and I can help support
people so that maybe they can gothrough the journey, not in it.
We don't truncate it to like,you know, minutes or weeks. But
(09:36):
we can, I can certainly take theexperience and I can support
other people on their journey totheir self awareness and self
understanding. Because reallywhat I felt was, what I learned
was that so many of us eithertry to pathologize or to
diagnose like, this is what'swrong with me. And instead it's
like, oh, wow, if I just givemyself permission to understand
(09:56):
myself, I can I suddenly havethis path. way of being able to
move myself forward instead ofjust being stagnant or stuck in
a certain box or label that I'vesort of just assimilated and
taken on this mind.
Erica D'Eramo (10:10):
Right. Yeah, I really love that framing.
Because sometimes we justcompound the very issue of being
able to trust ourselves andbuild more confidence when we
beat up on ourselves about thepatterns and behaviors that are
probably there for a goodreason, right? They've served us
in the past, they've kept ussafe in the past, maybe now
they're not as effective, likeour operating system from 2000
(10:34):
Probably shouldn't be ouroperating system for 2024. We'll
do some upgrades. But like,fundamentally, I think we see a
lot with women in particular,around the narrative of imposter
syndrome, right? We even theyeven took the word or the the
term that was initially coinedimposter phenomenon, like an
(10:55):
observed set of behaviors incontext, and then pathologized
it to be a syndrome that we haveto fix, rather than this being
like a logical response to oursurroundings.
Kamini Wood (11:11):
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's such a great point. I
think that we do that a lot withmany things. We call them
syndromes, suddenly, now,they're, you know, diagnoses or
pathologies, that we've got tosuddenly go fix and, right,
better.
Erica D'Eramo (11:26):
Which then compounds, this whole issue of
constantly trying to changeourselves adapt perfect, right?
Like it's feeding into thatexact Absolutely. pattern that
we're trying to break. So tellus a little bit about, I mean,
we mentioned talking throughself compassion, how do you
define self compassion? Like,what does that mean to you?
Kamini Wood (11:47):
Mean? Yeah, so I really, I love Kristin Neff and
Chris Germer, who are kind ofresearchers on self compassion.
And so I really follow howKristin describes it, which is
the very first thing when we'retalking about self compassion is
the concept of kindness overjudgment. And so how I describe
that is recognizing that we willmake choices or decisions in our
(12:11):
throughout the course of ourlives. And there will be moments
where maybe we look at that andsay, Okay, that was a mistake,
or that did not turn out the waythat I wanted it to, instead of
going into this place of what'swrong with me, why what why did
I choose that I'm, you know, anidiot for doing that. It's
leaning into kindness, like,wow, Okay, that did not turn out
the way that I wanted it to?
What did I learn? How can I growfrom this? Where do I choose to
(12:33):
go now? Which is, you know, whenwe think about judgment, so
often, I think, especially highachievers, almost convinced
themselves, that it's thejudgment that that will catapult
them and continue to move themforward. I know, I absolutely
believe that, you know, if Ibeat myself up, and I'll, it'll
push me it'll inspire me to dobetter, when in fact, what
(12:54):
happens is, it may push you forthe short amount of time, but
eventually it plateaus. Becausewe we actually will burn
ourselves out, when we start towhen we start to believe that,
you know, there's somethingwrong with us. So when Kristin
Neff talks about kindness overjudgment, it really is saying,
even if something doesn't go theway that we want it to, we will
(13:14):
use kindness over judgment. Thesecond part of it is that common
human humanity part where it isrecognizing we're not isolated
in our experiences. But instead,we are part of this idea of
common humanity, where otherpeople have had similar
experiences to what what we haveexperienced as well. And so we
can actually lean on otherpeople to say, you know, to ask
(13:38):
them, share your experience withme, be with me in this rather
than I have to I'm isolated onmy own. And then the third part
of self compassion ismindfulness being in this
moment, right here. And now.
Because so often, we spend ourdays either ruminating over the
past or we're worrying about thefuture. And self compassion
says, we can recognize that andalso come back to the present
(14:01):
moment. Where am I right now?
And what would be the bestchoice for me in this moment
moving forward?
Erica D'Eramo (14:07):
Yeah, I love that. I mean, so I just recently
finished an article on handlingnegative self talk like self
criticality, and so much of whatyou're talking about right now
is resonating a lot with thattopic. Because we, yeah, a lot
of high achievers have becomevery used to that voice, that
(14:27):
critical, negative voice. Andsometimes that voice again, kept
us safe, right? Like it waswatching out for us. It was
keeping us away from theguardrails. Sometimes it was
replicating the voices of theadults and people in power in
our lives. And so when thosevoices maybe we went off to
(14:47):
college, right, we didn't havethose voices right in our air
anymore. So we replicated it.
But there's a point at which wekind of realized like, maybe,
maybe this is not actually goingto advance me forward. as
effectively or efficiently as wewant. And also, this is gonna be
from somebody who doesn't havechildren. But I feel like when I
(15:08):
see small beings, I can look atthem and think like, I would
never want somebody to speak tothat small child who is worthy
of love and care the way I havespoken to myself, right?
Kamini Wood (15:24):
Yes, yes. Yeah, I love that. You just said that.
Because oftentimes people willget stuck on I don't know how to
be compassionate to myself,because it's so unknown. And
that's a great way to lean intothat, which is, if you were
speaking to a small child, or afriend or a loved one, what
would you say? And then offeryourself the same? The same
(15:47):
verbiage, the same, you know,compassion, the same empathy
that you would offer to thoseindividuals?
Erica D'Eramo (15:55):
Yeah. Because even the tough ones, right?
Sometimes we're like, Well, I'm,but I'm tough, like, I can be
tough on myself, it's fine. Ihave really high standards for
myself, you can have really highstandards for other people as
well and still treat them withrespect and compassion.
Kamini Wood (16:10):
Exactly. And to that point too that brings up
another point of pushback thatI'll get with self compassion,
which is, well, I do have highstandards. I do have high
standards. And if I'mcompassionate to myself that my
standards will drop.
Erica D'Eramo (16:23):
Yeah.
Kamini Wood (16:24):
And that's just that is definitely a limiting or
false belief where it's, it'snot your it's not the judgment
that had the highest standards,you already had the highest
standards, you can stillabsolutely have them, it's how
do you relate to those highstandards? Do you judge yourself
through them? Or do you continueto support yourself through
kindness and compassion, andcontinue to hold you don't have
(16:46):
to give up those high standardsin order to be compassionate to
yourself?
Erica D'Eramo (16:49):
Yeah, I think it was a book I read recently
called Chatter. I'm trying toremember the author, but it's
about like, sort of our internaldialogue. And they were talking
about some polling that they haddone with parents around who had
kids who were athletes, andasking, you know, if you have a
coach, who is always likescreaming and yelling, and
(17:14):
pushing your kid with, you know,negativity, would you prefer
that? Or would you prefer thecoach who like pushes your kid
hard, but with compassion, andcuriosity, and most parents,
even the ones who really wantedtheir kids just to, to excel,
recognize that the second optionwas more likely to lead to
(17:37):
excelling, performance. And itwasn't just about being nice. It
was also about performance that,you know, if you can remove
yourself from the situation andlook at it more objectively, you
can see that just negativity andharshness does not is not the
formula for high performance forover the long term. Yeah,
Kamini Wood (17:57):
Over the long term.
Exactly. Exactly. Yeah.
Erica D'Eramo (18:01):
So you mentioned false beliefs. Tell us a little
bit more about that, because I'mnot sure that everyone is
familiar with the term falsebeliefs. So what does that mean
to you?
Kamini Wood (18:10):
Yeah, I think a lot of people if they've heard of
it, termed a different way, theywill maybe have heard of
limiting beliefs or what I callfalse beliefs are the main ones,
which are I'm not I'm notenough, or I'm not good enough.
I'm unlovable is another one, Iam not worthy, or I'm unworthy,
undeserving, that one pops up alot as well. Those would be I
(18:34):
would say, examples of thosefalse beliefs and those beliefs.
Like for me, my example was, Idon't belong, right. And so
that, that, as I mentioned, thatled to the people pleasing
behaviors, why because that'show I compensated for that false
belief in order to work throughthat. But what happens with
these false beliefs is they'realmost like the foundational
(18:55):
wound, if we want to call itthat, and parts of ourselves,
then they they try to deal withthat foundational wound by
protecting us from it. But whathappens is if we don't pay
attention and unveil and becomeaware of what the false belief
is, we're kind of just coveringup with it with layers of other
things. And so the work that Ido with clients is, you know, in
(19:18):
a very loving trauma informedtrauma sensitive way is helping
them become aware of what thosefalse beliefs are, because once
we're aware of it, and we'veacknowledged what it is now we
can take committed action tomove ourselves through what is
actually true, like for for me,for instance, I will say that
the the belief the false beliefof I don't belong, it may still
(19:39):
pop its head up. Like I willgive an example My sons are
really into lacrosse, lacrossehappens to be still a very
predominantly white sport. Iwalk into a room or into onto a
field I should say, I walked tothe field and most of the
parents again, I look differentthan most of the parents that
are there. I'm not saying it'sacross the board, just
predominantly, you And I willsay that that belief might pop
(20:02):
up. But because I've done thiswork, I now can see it,
acknowledge it. And then I canwork through it with looking at
my own value system, looking atwhat I actually know is true
about myself. And I can takecommitted action to engage with
those parents in a totallydifferent way than I, then I
would have, you know, eight ornine years ago when I was still
carrying that false beliefcompletely unaware that that's
(20:23):
what was running the show.
Erica D'Eramo (20:26):
Yeah, there's this, this kind of framework
that, and I'm not sure if thiscame up in your kind of coaching
realm or training, but it wasreally eye opening for me, going
through coaching, training, andlooking at and I'm trying to
remember, like, what theframework is actually called
right now. But essentially it,it posits that beliefs lead to
(20:49):
our feelings, which then lead toour actions, which then lead to
the results. So we can start atany point in that chain. But
people often forget that thereis some underlying core belief
that is driving the feeling thatthey're having about the
situation that then drives theiraction, which then drives the
(21:09):
outcome. So if we're, if wedon't like what the outcome is
that we're getting, Okay, well,then what is the action that
we're doing that's contributingto that? Okay, why are we doing
that? Because we feel a certainway we're motivated, we have
some energy around it. And wheredid that come from? That always
comes from the core beliefstructure, which we almost
always take for granted. Becauseit's like part of the air we're
(21:31):
breathing. So...
Kamini Wood (21:33):
Yes, because that's what's running on the
subconscious level. It's theautopilot. It's the it's the
narrative, you know, that wehear this all the time and coach
speak, which is you can changeyour narrative, you rewrite your
own story, a lot of coaches willsay that, because that's what
really is happening. It's thenarrative that we've operated
with, to use your term, it's theoperating system. And we get to
make the choice, whether we wantto continue using that operating
(21:56):
system, or whether we're readyfor the upgrade, and we're ready
to do the work to upgrade thenarrative or the operating
system that we've been using.
Erica D'Eramo (22:03):
Right? Because rewiring our beliefs is not an
easy task. It's yeah. buildingawareness, right. And building
awareness around stuff is noteven an easy task. That's like,
building in this neural musclememory that takes time takes
practice. Yes, yeah. So tell usa little bit more about how some
(22:26):
of these, you know, either falsebeliefs or false narratives or
limiting beliefs, maybe keep us,keep us stagnated, or keep us
stuck where we're at?
Kamini Wood (22:37):
Well, again, if that's the operating system that
we're using, right, everythingis being filtered through that
belief. So let's takeAdvancement at work. For
instance, if we have a falsebelief of I'm not, I'm not good
enough, running underneath, it'skind of running behind the
scenes, then every time that weare potentially given an
opportunity to put ourselves infor a promotion, that that's
(22:59):
going to maybe hold us back fromtaking that step forward.
Because the belief behind thescenes is I'm not good enough.
So unless we're willing to dothat work, that is an example of
how we can stay stagnant, we'renot going to grow and push
ourselves or give ourselvespermission to to rise up to the
next level. Oftentimes, we talkabout my book, our potential,
and it's I want to live in to myhighest potential. Well, in
(23:22):
order to do that, we need tolook at what could be
potentially holding us back andthat, that, generally speaking,
are those false beliefs, becausethey are running the show behind
the scenes. You know, my mybiggest, you know, between not
wanting to be a burden, andpeople pleasing, what was
actually happening was I wasworrying about everybody else in
my world. And I wasn't payingattention to what my own needs
(23:44):
were, or even what I actuallydesired. Once I gave myself
permission to look at that, Irealized that wow, I while I
love, for instance, running myhusband's law, practice in terms
of being able to say, this isgreat, you're getting to, you
know, you're living your dream,this is what you've always
wanted. And it's great workingwith the individuals that are
here, what I actually want to dois I want to be able to help
(24:06):
people one to one, like Iactually want to be able to step
into the forefront and, and ownmy own practice and be able to
do the thing that I'm actuallyreally passionate about. That
was holding me back because Ibelieved that I needed to make
sure everybody else was Okay,first was the one that was
holding me back. So that's justanother example of how our
(24:27):
belief systems can hold us back.
Erica D'Eramo (24:30):
Yeah, I mean, using examples is really
probably the only way to goabout this conversation because
it's so varied and unique toeach individual, which is why
working with a coach can be sohelpful, right? Because it takes
this exploratory work ofquestioning and it's not like
somebody can tell you juststraight up oh, I I'm not gonna
(24:51):
put in for that promotionbecause I don't think I'm
capable. And then for you to beable to just say to them, well,
that's incorrect. You know,like, you would never say that
as poach, never just say, Well,you're wrong, you would explore
because there might be a varietyof different ways that they
think or believe that or itmight actually be factually
correct based on something. Andthat doesn't mean that tomorrow
(25:14):
you won't be qualified for it.
So like, what do we need to doto get there? But yeah, each,
each person has such a uniquemixture of experiences and core
beliefs that there's no one sizefits all on this.
Kamini Wood (25:28):
So yeah, exactly, exactly.
Erica D'Eramo (25:31):
So what are some of the ways that you debunk
false beliefs? Is there? I mean,is there a way? Is this a trick
question? I don't know. Or,like, is this a reasonable
question to ask?
Kamini Wood (25:43):
Well, I think it absolutely is a reasonable
question to ask, because I thinkthat's the work that that, you
know, as coaches, I think,different depending on what type
of coaches we are, you know,that's what we're kind of up
against is helping our clientssee things in a different way,
in terms of my work with thefalse beliefs about self, which
is where I kind of focus interms of recognizing that the
(26:04):
relationship with ourselves isthe foundational relationship
for anything that we want to doin our life. For for me, in
terms of my my work, and how Iapproach it is, you know, first
of all getting my client toactually get to the place where
they're able to see what thatcore belief is or what that
false belief is. Because oncethey're able to see it, and they
can acknowledge it, now we gointo work around, you know, what
(26:27):
do you know, is true aboutyourself outside of that belief?
You know, what, what are yourvalues, I think that that's a
really important thing for us totake, take into account when
we're when we're thinking aboutour core beliefs, and then take
those two things and recognizethat those two things are
actually what make us who weare, right? So often we think
(26:48):
that we are, again, we'reidentifying with the belief, and
instead it's moving identity,into our essence and our being.
And it's not the belief, justlike we say, we're not the
feeling we have or we're not thethought we're having, we're not
the belief, right? It's comingback home to Who am I really,
and then taking committed actionto live into that, that's the
(27:09):
only way to really debunk thebelief is to recognize what's
true about ourselves, come backhome to who we are as our inner
essence, we're looking at valuesthere, and then take committed
action to live into that,because what we're doing there
is we're, we're experiencing atotally different narrative.
It's one thing to say, I'm goingto change the narrative, but
again, action, right actionexperience is going to make our
(27:32):
system actually believe it andsee it differently.
Erica D'Eramo (27:36):
Yeah, I mean, this sounds like quite the
marketing challenge, to behonest, from like a business
perspective, to be able to, towork with the the folks who have
limiting beliefs, because we'reoften so unaware of our own
limiting beliefs that if youwere to say, like, hey, come
work with me, if you havelimiting beliefs, like people
(27:58):
are gonna be like, I don't haveany limiting beliefs. Right? So
how do you? How would peopleknow that they that they would
benefit from maybe coming tofind a coach, like yourself to
come work through some of this?
Kamini Wood (28:10):
You know, that you're absolutely right, they're
not going to necessarily knowit's limiting beliefs. It's how
we experience it through thesymptoms that we have, right? So
it's, it's the the individualswho recognize, like, wow, I'm
anxious all the time, I do notknow how to stop the anxiety,
I'm stressed out, I'm, I'mfeeling burnt out, I'm noticing
a lot of self doubt, right. I'mjust, I'm questioning myself all
the time. Those be greatinsights into there's something
(28:33):
going on here, I probably needsupport. And then that's why
coaches are important to havebecause then through that
process, the client can start tosee it for themselves. Because
again, if I come into asituation, or oh, this is a
limiting belief, it's not thethe person has to see it for
themselves, they have to havethat, that insight and awakening
(28:54):
for themselves. So we start withhow are you experiencing life?
And where what do you what areyou noticing? And where are
those those key points? Maybe Ihate to put it this way, but
those pain points, right, like,where are you? Maybe not, you
know, maybe maybe the pain pointis not feeling like you're
advancing at work, right? That'smaybe how you're experiencing
it. And then through theconversations that we're having,
(29:17):
and through the questions thatare being asked, they start to
build this insight forthemselves of like, oh, wow,
that's why and where this iscoming from. I'm now
understanding, I'm understandingmyself better. I'm understanding
kind of where this isoriginating from. And that's
when the the are able to makethe shifts that they need to
because the truth is, we canchange certain things at the
(29:39):
surface level. You know, a lotof people are like, Oh, well,
I'm feeling really anxious, soI'm just gonna meditate more. It
will help. It does. It doesn'tit definitely brings your stress
levels down. But then I'll haveclients who say, Yeah, I tried
meditation. It worked for alittle while and I'm still
having the issue like it's stillpopping back up, right because
we haven't done all
Erica D'Eramo (29:57):
the magnesium in the world, isn't it?
Kamini Wood (30:02):
Exactly, exactly.
Yeah.
Erica D'Eramo (30:04):
I take a bath of magnesium every night, but it's
not gonna fix the underlyingchallenge here. Yeah.
Kamini Wood (30:11):
Exactly, exactly.
Erica D'Eramo (30:13):
Yeah.
Kamini Wood (30:13):
Yeah.
Erica D'Eramo (30:14):
So. Okay, yeah, I think that that's also helpful
for anyone listening who's like,oh, this probably doesn't apply
to me. But I do love youremphasis there around, we can
just come in. And so maybe thisis a bit of, I'll put this out
there as a possible red flag tobe looking for if you work with
someone, and they say, like,well, that's a limiting belief.
(30:38):
And they start labeling yourbeliefs as limiting for you.
Because first of all, none of ushigh achievers want to be told
what we are and are not. That'sone way to get me to rebel
against you immediately is tojust start telling me and
labeling me and again,pathologizing, right. And we are
very perceptive. And so theremight be reasons that we are
(31:00):
choosing not to see certainthings, or acknowledge certain
discomforts and might be veryuncomfortable to look at. But
like shoving somebody's face init, or telling them that you
know, better what is going onwith them than they do is
completely disempowering andcounterproductive. So yes, I
think it can take some time. AndI love that the approach that
(31:22):
you mentioned, where people needto come to this in their own
time and see it, and beempowered by it themselves, and
opt into any of those changesthemselves and not be like,
shoved down the road, becauseyou're literally doing the
opposite of what we're trying todo, which is self empowerment.
Kamini Wood (31:40):
Yeah, exactly.
Exactly. The best metaphor Ihave is that teenagers, right,
if you tell them to clean theirroom, they're gonna be no not
going to but the moment thatit's their idea, and they're
like, No, I really think that Ineed to have less clutter in my
room. The room is spotless,right? So it's mean, honestly,
we just have to treat ourselvesthat same way where it's
recognizing that we, we can'tcome into it and say, This is
(32:00):
what's wrong with you. Andthat's why I really, I do veer
away from pathology, and I just,I constantly say, less
pathologizing moreunderstanding.
Erica D'Eramo (32:12):
Yes, yep.
Curiosity, what will beeffective here? That's, that's
one of my biggest questions.
What do you think would be mosteffective here? So I really
appreciate some of your insightshere today. How would you
summarize any key takeaways thatyou want listeners to retain
after the after they kind ofclose their play their podcast
(32:33):
player and have their littlemind wipe? What's What are some
of the key takeaways that theyshould retain after this
episode?
Kamini Wood (32:40):
Oh, gosh, that's a loaded question. I hope that
people walk away one, one veryimportant thing, which is that
there's nothing wrong with you.
Right? It's that instead, it istruly about giving yourself
permission to understandyourself on a deeper level. That
would be I think, number one,and number two, is, you know,
give yourself permission to getcurious with maybe what what are
those things that have beenholding me back? Right? Why? Why
(33:04):
am I feeling certain ways? Orwhy am I having the same?
Oftentimes, it's like the sameexperiences, why do I keep
feeling like I'm experiencingthe same thing? Get curious with
it. And that's why you know,we've talked about self
compassion, get curious and becompassionate, and just see if
there's, there's something tolearn through that. And then,
from there, be able to figureout what your next step is.
Erica D'Eramo (33:26):
Yeah. Like if we were a cat, right? You would?
What's going on here? Why are weusing a cat who can talk to you?
So if anyone wanted to learnmore about your offerings
connect with you? What's thebest way for them to do that?
Kamini Wood (33:44):
I'm on the web at kaminiwood.com And then social
media, Facebook, Instagram. Thathandles @itsauthenticme and I'm
also on LinkedIn, under my name.
Erica D'Eramo (33:54):
Excellent. Well, we will be including that in the
show notes. And in the littlesummary blog posts that we
include for each episode. And ifanyone is looking for the
transcript for this episode, youcan find that on our website as
well, which is two peersconsulting.com. We really
appreciate you coming on todayand sharing your insights. Thank
you so much Kamini.
Kamini Wood (34:13):
Thank you for having me. So appreciate it.
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