WMH Season 2 Ep 11: Shifting Your Mindset for Better Mental Health and Success

This is a transcript of Watching Mental Health Season 2, Episode 11 which you can watch and listen to here:

Katie: Hi everyone. Welcome to another episode of Watching Mental Health, and I'm really excited for this episode because bringing on a local superstar, in my opinion, I've seen her out in the community. We've talked, and I think that she's doing really cool things and I just love following what she's doing. And her name is Rachel West. She is the founder and empowerment coach of Empowering Growth. She's a wellness strategy, a certified trainer, a breakthrough expert, transformation specialist speaker, and a bestselling author. So like I said, she's doing some pretty amazing things and she's really passionate about helping individuals discover self and life mastery by creating healthy habits and behaviors. And today we're going to talk about shifting your mindset and to improve your mental health and achieve those desired results that you want. And I really love her approach because she really brings that mental health mindset approach to a success and bettering yourself, whether that be career-wise personally. And so I think that her approach is really, really cool, and I thought that she would be a great guest. And so without further ado, let's bring on Rachel West to the show!

Rachel: Hi, Katie. Thanks so much for having me today.

Katie: Thank you so much for being here. I'm so excited. And like I said, I've been wanting you to be a guest. I remember reaching out to you like eight months ago, I think, and just really, really glad that you made it on

Rachel:

Me too. I'm glad to be here, and I'm happy to talk about mental wellness and all the things that we can do in our community.

Katie: Yeah, absolutely. And I see you doing some pretty amazing things. But before we get into all of that, tell me in your own words a little bit more about yourself and why mental health, mental wellness and this kind of work is really important to you.

Rachel: So what I do as an empowerment coach is exactly that, is to empower others to become their best self. And I do that by helping them to improve their overall wellness by shifting their mindset. Mindset is so important, and I got into it. Well, I think when we're growing up, we see things that happen and we experience things in our life and we don't really realize what it means until later on. So growing up, my parents divorced when I was two years old, and I grew up with my mom. My dad wasn't really around that much, and my mom was in and out of relationships with men who struggled with addictions. So the environment that I grew up in wasn't the best environment. It wasn't a healthy environment. It was somewhat toxic, as you can imagine. And so just going through those experiences really prepared me and helped me see that there are so many people struggling, so many people in silence and suffering alone. They feel like they're the only one that nobody can relate to what they're going through, or they don't want to burden their family or friends by sharing it. So they keep it to themselves and they're really suffering in silence.

Katie: Yeah, that's hard. It sounds like you, and I think that's the case for a lot of us. You had a personal experience growing up and you felt that you didn't want to feel that again. You didn't want other people to feel that. And I can really relate to that, actually. So then what kind of, when you decided to embark on a career, did you know that this was exactly what you want to do? How did you stumble on this? It feels unique but necessary, but needed. You know what I mean?

Rachel: Yeah. I mean, I kind of stumbled into it, but also not, I think we have a divine plan and sometimes we go off it, but in some cases we find our way back. So I did the whole thing, college getting the degree, and I got my degree in graphic design, and I thought that that was going to be my life. I loved it. I started a business and then I came into modern neuroscience. I started studying it to learn a deeper study of psychology, how people are processing information, how they learn. And so I thought I was studying this for marketing purposes to be a more professional, professional,

Different from all the other graphic design and marketing companies that are out there. I wanted something that was a little bit different. So if I learned this science and I learned how people make decisions and process the information they're reading, then that could help me write better marketing messages. And I'm sure you can relate to that. Yeah, absolutely. But as I was going through that and learning the knowledge, I thought, wow, I could really use this knowledge for a deeper purpose than marketing. I can really help people who are stuck, who are struggling, who feel alone, who are going through things that I went through and experienced growing up. And so it really put into play why certain things I experienced, how I reacted to them, and growing up in an environment with addiction surrounding it, I at the time could separate the two. I knew in my mind as a young kid, this addiction diction the behaviors of this person isn't the person. And if they could just see that and realize that themselves, they could be this person, I see them to be. And so I would almost unfairly now say that I would hold them on a pedestal. If you could just become this what I see that you can be and come, then you would be this amazing purpose a person. And I see now that that's unfair because it's their journey and they need to go through what they need to go through so that they can learn and grow from them.

But just being a young kid and being able to

Katie: See

Rachel: That a person that's not them, the behavior and the action is not who they are. It doesn't define them, really allowed me to. And then learning the science really allowed me to step into becoming a coach. And so I left the graphic design space and I started my journey in coaching, and then within two weeks, I got my very first client, and that told me that this was the right path. This is where I needed to be, and that's why all of these experiences that I had led me to this moment.

Katie: Yeah, absolutely. I think that's beautiful. I really love that you were able to not only recognize the other people have their own journeys and their behaviors are different from who they are, but also recognize that your journey is really meant to be here. Even though you were on a different path, you saw it and you knew that's where your heart was pulling you. So I think that that's amazing because it really does go to show, I mean, I think you're absolutely right. We do all have a purpose and we do all have a calling, and you were able to really tap into that calling since childhood, and that's awesome.

Rachel: Yeah,

Katie: I love that.

Rachel: It does take some work. I won't say that it's easy and that, oh, it just happened. It didn't just happen, but I was taking the steps. I used to say that I was just going through life, checking off boxes. I graduated high school, check that bar. I go to college. Okay, check that. What degree do I want to do? I'm going to pick graphic design. Okay, check that mark. And then what am I going to do with this degree? Am I going to get a job and climb the corporate ladder and start a career? Am I going to start a business? Okay, I'll start a business. Check that. And then as I started in personal development in 2017, that really aligned the mission with what I was doing. So I realized, wow, I'm just going through life, checking off these boxes, doing what I'm supposed to do, do what society says, do what my parents say, do what my grandparents say. Everybody around us says, you have to do all of these things. So I was doing all of those things, but I wasn't really feeling fulfilled or happy. I was just doing it. I felt like a robot, like, oh, I'm just doing what I was programmed to do.

And then doing that personal development work allowed the awareness to happen that I was doing that to myself. And then comes the decision, do you decide to keep doing that or do you decide to change to make a shift? And I decided, Hey, this isn't working for me anymore because I don't want to be living my life just checking off boxes of what other people say. I want to do what I want to do, and I want to do this coaching, so I'm going to do it. And I did it.

Katie: Yep, yep. Absolutely. That's so cool and scary. It's scary to step into yourself. And then there's resistance at first, and that's hard. It's almost like the universe is saying, are you sure are. It's hard to work through that.

Rachel: It is scary. And I will say I started my coaching business in January of 2020.

Katie: Whoa.

Rachel: So March, 2020 happens.

Katie: Yes,

Rachel: World shuts down. I'm brand new entrepreneur, coach.

I will say that luckily, whenever we make a decision to change in life, we're not starting over. We're starting from experience. We're starting from knowledge. We're starting from education. So I did have a business for four years prior to that. So I didn't lose all of that with the new business. I still had those relationships that I built. I still had those networking opportunities that I had built. And so I utilized that. I jumped on Zoom just like everybody else did in March of 2020. Everybody went online. That's the only thing we could do. But I started reaching out to all of those connections, all of those networking organizations and saying, Hey, I'm no longer doing this. I'm doing this. Who can you connect me to?

Katie: Wow. Wow. That's cool. Well, I think that's a perfect transition because I wanted to step into mindset, and it sounds like you had the mindset, and I know it takes work, and you have to go through that personal development to know, to get that mindset, that to make that jump. But you made it without thinking that, oh, you were starting over, which I think that probably gave you so much more confidence than other people who maybe don't have a mindset like that going into something scary or something big. So it sounds like you were able to build up your mindset to make that transition.

Rachel: And I will say that I first, when I was going through my journey in my design business, whenever I was, so this is what happened, we started the business in 2016. I had a partner and I got pregnant with my daughter right after we started our business. So for the first year, she was the go out network, meet people and do that. I was the stay at home behind the computer, do all the marketing, the digital marketing, do the designing. I was her assistant. So she would go to these events, and then she would bring me the business cards, and I would email the people and set up a time for her. But in that experience, I realized that people weren't, she was going to all these events. She was everywhere, and she was meeting tons of people, and nobody was emailing her asking to connect. Interesting. Yes. So that showed me, when I step out into her space and I'm now marketing alongside her and meeting people and networking and all the things, that was going to be my number one key is to follow up with the people I meet. Because if other people weren't doing that and I was doing that, that would make me different.

Katie: Yep. Yep. It did done. And it does.

Rachel: And so once I stepped into that role and I started marketing and meeting people and networking and all the things, I really built a relationship with the person. I wasn't there trying to sell them my services and design work and print and all the things. I was really just wanting to connect, hi Katie, who are you? How can I help you? What are you looking for? Who do you want to be connected to? I was asking those questions and really getting to know the person, and I wasn't getting any sales. And I'm like, maybe I'm doing this whole thing wrong because I've doing this now for two years. Fast forward, and I'm still not getting any sales, but I'm meeting all these people and I don't feel comfortable asking about the sale. And they say all these things you're supposed to do, and again, supposed to do. I didn't want to do that. I wanted to just get to know the person. Fast forward to switching businesses. That's what helped me because I still have all of those relationships. I didn't leave the graphic design business to my partner and everything, follow with her and stay there. It followed me into this business because I had built the connection with the person and not just talking to them to get a sale.

Katie: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

Rachel: So that helped

Katie: With

Rachel: The mindset, mindset and being more comfortable with making that jump.

Katie: Yeah. Yeah. It was a genuine thing. And you already had those genuine relationships. And then, so answer me this, when you stepped into your coaching business, which is more in line with your purpose, was it easier to then have those conversations around money and sales? Or was that a muscle that you had to continue to work?

Rachel: I would say both. It was easier because I had a passion for it where the graphic design I liked doing. I enjoyed it. It was fun. It was creative. It was an outlet. But inside, internally, we don't always understand what's going on. We don't have the awareness. It's just kind of happening like a computer. The hard drive is just kind of running in the background, and we don't really know what's going on unless it's broken. And then we're like, Hey, fix it. That's kind of what was happening in my design business. I don't think I was getting the sales because I really, it was a checkbox. It was just going through the motions. There wasn't anything internally going on, but I was going through the motions. But we don't realize that, that there's an energy exchange we have with every person we meet.

Katie: Yes,

Rachel: We can show up fake, we can show up in a mask. We can show up pretending to be our best selves. But if internally you're not in alignment with how you're presenting yourself, the person on the other end that you're communicating with energetically can that or feel that they don't know how to describe it or explain it, they may not even realize. They just get this feeling like something's off. And I think that's what was happening in my design business when I was having these genuine connections and building these relationships, but avoiding the sales because I didn't really want to be doing it. It was just something I should be doing.

And I talk about this because so many people fall into just going through the motions of things, doing the things they should be doing or they were told to do, or expectations of other people or showing up in a certain way because you have to be this way. And I like these conversations because, and I love this show because I think that when you have these real conversations with people, especially around the mental health, you find that you're not alone. You find that you have a lot more in common if you have a conversation with somebody than you do differences. If you look at social media or media in general, and you look at the glitz and the glam and you think, oh, this person has it all together. Maybe they're showing up, they have it all together, but maybe they don't. So having these real genuine conversations allows people to see that, Hey, maybe I'm not alone. Hey, maybe she doesn't have it all together. And I thought she did.

Katie: Totally. Totally. And I mean, society just shoulds us left and right. I've had so many coaches where all I do is I show up, well, I should do this, and I should have done that. And they're like, stop shooting yourself, Katie. You got to stop.

I just think that's, yeah, it's really powerful. So let's talk a little bit more about mental health and mindsets. I know that for people with serious mental illness there, there's work to do, but there's a lot of people out here struggling with things like anxiety and depression, and sometimes life is super hard, and that's really what is getting you down. And sometimes there's something more serious going on that you really need to work through. But either way, you need tools. You need to work through your mindset, even with the serious mental illness. I have found that in the research that I've done, the people who wind up doing better in their treatment are the ones who believe that they can do better, versus the people who maybe have a mental health condition and they believe that there is no hope that they can't do better. So I do think mindset is powerful. So you're the expert here. So I want to ask this open-ended question really to talk a little bit about the power of mindset in mental health and in mental wellness.

Rachel: Yeah, I think you hit the what, the head on the nail, whatever. Yeah, nail on the head, something like that. Exactly what you were explaining. I think it is a belief. And so many people, I fell into this too when I was, I don't know, probably seven or eight years old, and I was in grade school. I went to the counselor's office with my mom, and the counselor told me that I had a learning disability. So we go to these professionals, a school counselor, a therapist, a psychiatrist, a doctor, and they tell us, you have this, and you take that label, you slap it on your back, and you carry it with you. Having been labeled with a learning disability at a young age, usually diagnosis happens very young. If not, it's something that happened at a very young age, but it didn't really get realized until you were older.

So you get this label or diagnosis and you accept that belief, okay, I have a learning disability. I believe this counselor. Why would they tell me anything different? They got my best interest in mine. That means I'm not smart. That means I learned slower than you and everyone else in my class. Oh, I'm struggling with reading. That's because I have a learning disability. Oh, I struggle with writing a report. Oh, that's because I have a learning disability. I struggle with communicating and finding the right words to say, oh, that's because I have a learning disability. It all goes back to that diagnosis or label. I like to call it a label that we're given. Somebody gives it to us and we accept it. And the mind is so powerful, it acts it out, and then it's your reality, but you can also reverse it. So when I go through my entire life, 27 years, I believe I have this learning disability, and I start my personal development journey. I start this neuroscience, and I'm learning about the brain, and I'm learning about how people are communicating and processing information, and I'm realizing that I never had this learning disability.

It was how I processed and that teachers weren't explaining it properly to me, so I was confused. So in that moment, I decided I'm no longer going to accept that label or maybe what could happen for people. Maybe it is true in the moment. Maybe you do. Maybe I did have a learning disability in first grade, second grade at that age, maybe I was a little bit slower, maybe all the things. But then because I accepted that, then everything became because of that. Then we blame that. And I've seen that happen in my coaching clients. They have accepted some label, and then I forgot where I was going with that.

Katie: They live their life to that label is what it sounds like. Yeah,

Rachel: Basically. Yeah. Because they accept it and because then they believe it, and then they're seeing it in reality that they blame that for everything. And that becomes, oh, that was where I was going with it. One of my clients, he would use that label as an excuse to not get better, because if I get better and I'm the same person then, but if I'm this and I have this label, then it's the label's problem. So it's like an scapegoat for the person to not accept responsibility for how your life is and how your environment is, and how your situation is.

Katie: For sure. It can become a hindrance and then an excuse, and there's got to be that balance. So then this actually leads well to my next question, which is do you believe out of what you've seen that somebody who is experiencing a mental health challenge or who has a diagnosis that they can overcome that diagnosis? I think I know where you're going with this. Or is it something that they have to struggle with for the rest of their life that they have to always treat and maintain?

Rachel: I'm not a professional, I'm not a doctor, anything. Let me put a disclaimer on all of that.

Katie: Yes,

Rachel: Yes. Do your research. Contact your psychiatrist.

Katie: Yeah, absolutely.

Rachel: Yes. I do believe that people with your mindset, with the right tools, you used the word tools, which is important here with the right tools, with the right help, you can shift things even if it's little.

Katie: Okay, I like that.

Rachel: Yes. I think you can overcome it if you believe it, and you have the right tools and the right support to do that.

Katie: Yeah, absolutely. Wow. And I like that with the right tools, with the right supports. To me that says that this isn't like a one and done situation, just like motivation, just like bathing. You got to do it every day in order to keep it, in order to maintain it, in order to keep that mindset. Would you say that's similar with improving your mindset, that you have to keep working at it in order to make sure that it's in the right place?

Rachel: Yeah. You do.

Katie: Yeah, for sure. That is so powerful. I just love what you said. So for people out there who are maybe struggling and who know that they need a mindset shift, what's a good way to get in contact with you? Who are your ideal clients that you enjoy working with, you think can get the most out of this style of coaching that you have?

Rachel: Yeah. My ideal client is an individual who needs accountability to reach that next goal in whatever that is in life. I really help my clients. You use the word balance, and so many people use the word balance, but I like to create harmony. That's where it's flowing in every area of your life, because your life is ups and downs, and sometimes this is more important than this. And if you're always trying to keep them balanced the same, this part might need more work and attention than this one. So as long as it's an aha moment for me, I know. So as long as you keep it in harmony, that's the word, and it flowing as life changes, that is what is important. And so somebody who wants help creating those healthy habits, creating those healthy behaviors to have the desired results that they want.

Katie: Absolutely. Ah, that's beautiful. How can people get in contact with you?

Rachel: The best way is to go to my website. It's empowering growth coach.com. And there you can find my social media links. You can find my phone number, my email, and reach out to me, however best fits.

Katie: Beautiful. I love it. Well, we are right at time, but I want to end on this question. What are some of your favorite self-care tips or tricks? What do you do for, I know that it's super important for people like you who are pouring into others, and so anyone who's listening, what are some of your favorite self-care tips?

Rachel: I do so many different self-care things in my day. I used to think that I needed to pick one, and that I needed to create a habit and do it every day, all the time for the rest of my life. And I would get bored with it. So I no longer do that. I might do it for a month, maybe four months, but then I choose something different. And I'm very creative. So I like doing Oracle cards. I pull a card and I journal on it. I will do meditations. I will do breath work. I will have girl time with my friends and go to a spa. Sometimes I just unplug my phone and turn it off. And no social media, no dinging, no nothing for an entire day for me.

Katie: Oh my gosh. Yeah. The no dinging. I don't know what that's like. I feel like I should try me to do that just for one day. Try it. It'll be so nice. I think I will. I absolutely will. And these are great tips. I'm also creative, so I am going to take some of these tips and run with them. And I like that, that you don't have to be so hard on yourself to do the same thing every day for the rest of your life. Because I think so many of us are like, oh, I should be doing mental health. I should be doing meditation. And it's again, that's that shoulding on yourself.

You should be doing what is going to bring you the most self-care in that moment. And so I think that's wonderful. Awesome. Well, I just so appreciate your time. This was a fabulous conversation. I got so much out of it. Harmony, that's my new word moving forward. I'm there. I'm with you. It was really good. And you can come back anytime. I would just love it. And we are live here every first and third Wednesday for all of our folks listening live at 3:00 PM Pacific time. But then also catch all of our episodes at katierosewaechter.com, and then also my YouTube, Spotify, anywhere where you listen to podcasts. And again, thank you Rachel for being here. I'm so grateful. Thank you so much!