15. Unplugged Wisdom: Cultivating Purpose and Peace in a Digital Age

Unplugged Wisdom: Cultivating Purpose and Peace in a Digital Age

Welcome to another empowering episode of the Empowered By Claudia Podcast! Today, Claudia delves deep into the realm of finding peace, presence, and purpose in our hyper-connected digital age with the insightful Nicola.

Key Themes:

• The Distraction Cycle: Breaking Free
• Digital Detox Dilemma: Navigating FOMO vs. Living in the Moment
• Phone Addiction and Missing Life's Genuine Moments
• The Struggle of Switching Off: Embracing Life Beyond the Screen
• Mindful Living: Navigating the Distraction Trap

Episode Highlights:

• Nicola shares her journey of blending coaching with outdoor adventures and the profound impact of the Free Spirit Weekends.
• The struggle of disconnecting and the liberating power it brings to our lives.
• Practical tips for achieving a harmonious digital balance and embracing the joy of missing out on constant notifications. 

Join Claudia and Nicola on this transformative journey to unplugging, cultivating wisdom, and discovering the profound peace that comes with embracing life beyond the screen.

Tune in for an inspiring conversation that might just be the nudge you need to embark on your own journey of digital detox and self-discovery. Remember, achieving peace, presence, and purpose starts with the decision to unplug.

Connect with Nicola:

• Website
• Free Spirited Weekends 
• Instagram
• Doing Things Differently Facebook group
• Free introductory coaching call
• Money Mindset Free Resource - send Nicola a DM on instagram for the link

Transcript

Claudia: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Empowered by Claudia podcast. Today we have another wonderful guest. Her name is Nicola and we actually met when I was traveling Australia with my little sister Nicola, another Nicola just to confuse matters there. And I think we were in Brisbane, weren't we Nicola?

was it? 

Nicola: Yeah, 

Claudia: a long time ago. Yeah. We'll probably not disclose how many years ago that was. So Nicola is another coach and she's got so much to share with you. So without further ado I'd like you to welcome her to the podcast and she's going to start with a little introduction to who she is. Welcome Nicola. 

Nicola: Thank you. Yeah, so I'm Nicola. Like Claudia said, I'm a coach and I'm a former occupational therapist and I specialize in helping people unstick themselves and sort of find their inner power and then use that power to make awesome things happen for themselves and everybody around them. That's how I can summarize it in short form. But yeah, I can go into more detail, but tell me what you want to know. 

Claudia: So we met. A while ago. And I just wondered how you went from being an occupational therapist in the NHS to living in Switzerland, running your coaching business and having a completely different life.

Nicola: Well, bear in mind when I, when I met you, I was. When I talk about stuckness, I know what that is like, because I've spent many, many years there. I think when I met you, I just left working in the social media and marketing industry. And then I job switched for so many years. Like before I found occupational therapy, I was doing all sorts of stuff. I was a musician for years as well. I tried all the industries. And then I got into occupational therapy in 2016 because I was volunteering at the time. And I was like, I want to do something more purposeful, more meaningful. That was so important to me. Like not writing tweets for Tampax, which is what I was doing at one point which is interesting. Wasn't fulfilling me in the right, in the right ways. And then I found occupational therapy and I discovered that I was obsessed with kind of the mind and body and holistic healing and all of that. And I started as an assistant and then I did my training and I love the world of occupational therapy, but I knew from even starting my training that I didn't necessarily want to. Be doing that in the way that I was able to in kind of in the healthcare system. I gave it a go. I was like, I'm going to try a bunch of different things. It was always mental health and occupational therapy. You can do such a broad range of things. I think, you know, as a nurse, but I was always mental health through and through.

And then I. Yeah, I always knew I wanted to do something a bit different and I was trying to figure out what that was. And then I fell in love with coaching by receiving coaching myself. I think how everybody does having a fantastic coach and doing a bit of training. And then wanting to combine all my experience that was both personal and professional, put that into something that was my own and that had no limit to what I could offer people. I've always had this really entrepreneurial brain. And when I worked in the system, it was very much like Okay, you can take your ideas and you can sit on them and, you know shush, be quiet, stay in your lane. And I was like, no, I want to do stuff. And so, yeah, when lockdown happened, I was kind of, I'd changed jobs.

I wasn't working in the hospital anymore. I worked in employment coaching, which gave me a bit of a toast, toast, a taste for working from home and from doing coaching full time. There's elements of coaching in occupational therapy, but it's much more than that, but I kind of just wanted to focus on the coaching. And then when we could both, me and my partner could both work remotely because of lockdown, we decided to move to Switzerland and work for ourselves. And that sounds so bonkers, like why move to Switzerland? He is originally from Switzerland. My husband, but we'd lived in London for years and years and years. And we thought we're going to stay there. And we bought a house and everything. And then I was just like, I love mountains. I love nature. We'll talk about that plenty today. I'm sure. I'm not very happy here in London. And so it was only last year when we moved and I kind of started working for myself. A little bit before then, but really ramped up the coaching stuff all last May, when we moved here to Switzerland. So it all happened with a bit of a bang and it's the best decision I've ever made, both Switzerland and own business. I'm never going back. You can never put me back in a box again. I'm free.

Claudia: I totally know what you mean. About working in particularly such a large system that the NHS is very much. These are what we're paying you to do. This is, this is your box and you will stay in it. And whilst there are opportunities to develop ideas to a certain extent, it's, it's, there are limits and it's so refreshing when you've got your own business that you can mold.

And if you've got a new idea, you can just run with it. Like you don't have to, yeah, exactly. Literally in the, in the space of time, it can. It takes to open up Canva. It's like, Oh, got a whole new program because it just, it just feels really nice to let that creativity out, doesn't it? 

Nicola: Yeah, I'm like bursting with creativity. When I was in the NHS and it was like, I was in occupational therapy on a ward and I was like, I'm going to start, we're going to start a band, right? It was inpatient mental health. People have been there for a long time. I think it was in secure services. Just to get sign off for a keyboard for people that wanted it. Took me so many months and I had to jump through so many loopholes cause I will find myself a loophole. Just to get these people, you know, by the time I managed to get a keyboard, because, you know, it had to be pat tested, it had to be brand new but it couldn't be too expensive, you know by the time I got it, one of the people had left anyway, so it was, it really frustrated me, but we were able to do great things. You just have to be really, really. Relentless about it. And I was, but I just knew that for my future, that would grind me down. And I'd already burnt out in previous careers. And I was like, I'm not having that for this. Like, yeah, I could rant about that all day. 

Claudia: Going back to that moment when you said you were living in London, we were in and out of lockdowns and you realized you weren't happy there. Was there a particular moment or did it build up? How did you get to that realization that you wanted to run off to Switzerland?

Nicola: It had gone on for a while, but I'm very good at making my, making the best of every situation. So even though I was like, Oh, I'm not getting enough nature in London. I found the best parks and I would go there and have my little wonderful nature breaks. So I'd convinced myself that I was happy enough. And then we'd originally planned to do like six months in one place and six months in the other. And then I think we gave it a trial in like the winter and he was thinking, Oh, she's going to hate this. The dead of winter in Switzerland. Like, well, and I think when that went so well, that made me realize. That I was more unhappy than I noticed back home. I think that's what it was. It was, I remember exactly where, where we were hiking and we're having this conversation and I was like, I think this is the life that I want to be living. And I was so worried about my, my brother just had his first child, my gorgeous nephew, and I was so worried about leaving them and I was like, coming up with all of these reasons why I shouldn't do it. But in the end. And I tell people all the time. We have to follow our heart. We have to follow our gut. And my gut at that time was like, I need to be here. There's a story for me here. Like my, my place is here. And then, yeah, then, then we just took the plunge. And that doesn't mean I was deeply, deeply unhappy. And I mean, definitely during lockdown, there were moments where I was deeply unhappy where I was, but something was just not right in my soul. Yeah. That doesn't sit well with me. That's when I work with people. That's what I'm trying to pull out of them as well. It's like, what's the thing that's not sitting right with you? What, what are the things that you're afraid of? What are the stories that you're telling yourself to not take that leap? And I'm a prime example of, of doing that over and over again, like blocking myself and then going, I'm not allowing myself to be blocked anymore. Let's just see what happens. So yeah, I'm really passionate about going with it and seeing, seeing what happens. Trusting your gut. 

Claudia: It takes a lot, doesn't it? To go from that place where things are not happy, you're not quite happy, but you're like, well, there were worse things so like you say, making the best of it, finding the best bits of nature in London. But knowing on a deeper level that you're compromising. So what kind of advice would you have for any listeners that might have a little niggle, they're not entirely sure what's wrong. What's like the first thing that they can do to really identify what is, what's, what's keeping them stuck or. If they are 

Nicola: stuck, this is the first part of the picture that I work with the people I say it's all about clarity, self belief and taking action. We've got to get the clarity and that's where we spend a really, really long time just being honest with ourselves and going, okay, how do we feel? I say to people, I don't want to hear you writing, talking about what you're good at and matching that up with some sort of thing that already exists. I want to hear you. Listening to yourself and the best way to listen to ourselves is to remove all distractions. That's why I love to do my phoneless Sundays, which I think I'm now moving to Fridays because anyway. Having a whole day without the phone, turning off social media, getting away from people. I know that's difficult when we've got kids, obviously. I have the luxury of being able to do it for a whole day, but I tell the parents, like, get yourself two hours in the park where you can just disappear. For me nature is the most important way of doing it for other people like Doing art or something like, I know somebody finds that clarity through doing painting, for example.

But for me and many, many other people, it's removing all distractions, going out into nature for long enough to actually start to hear yourself. First, you just hear the chatter, chatter, chatter, and then you need to start to feel yourself and go, what is that feeling? And then follow that thread of discomfort and ask that feeling, like, what do you need from me? What's that fear there? And usually it's like. Okay, when we're feeling stuck, it's because we're not seeing our choices or we're seeing our choices, but they're so unappealing. And so when we're just we've got no distractions, we can have a conversation with them a little bit more. And I would journal them, that's how I started, that's like level one, journaling my, with my with my thoughts. And then level two is Genuinely talking to myself when I'm out on a hike and I'll be like, okay, so you're feeling this way. Why do you think you're feeling this way? Luckily, nobody lives here. Like I'm in such a quiet place. I go up to the mountain behind my house and I'm talking, walking for like two hours, talking to myself. I don't see anybody. That's not always feasible, especially when you live in London, but you just, just write to yourself and try to understand what, what those feelings are. Don't try and fix any of it. We just have to feel it. And, and then start to ask yourself, like, what's important to me? What are my priorities? Where do I want to be in five years time? Not in the exact same place that I'm in now. What needs to happen to actually get to that point? And just be really bloody nice to yourself as well. Like, I always say to people, when we're having conversations with our, in our heads, Rather than talking, we don't come to any conclusion because the mean voice generally takes over and we don't even realize the mean voice has gone. Oh, gosh, I said that thing again when we're talking to ourselves out loud. It was so much nicer. We talked how we would talk to our kids or younger people or, or our close friends. And we'd be like, but that's really sad that you feel that way. Like, why don't, what do we do with that feeling? Like, blah, blah, blah. I think I've gone off on a tangent a little bit. Just going to go back to what you said. No, no, no. What was the, what was the actual question? What, what would you do to, don't give me that face. When that first feeling of stuck 

Claudia: comes in. When the feeling of stuck comes in. 

Nicola: Okay. Okay. Tune in, plug into yourself, disconnect from everything else, plug into you because we've got all the answers within us, but we're never. We never choose to listen or we're too afraid to listen, 

Claudia: generally. Yeah, I was actually reflecting earlier, I sat down to do some social media posts and then got sidetracked and did something completely different. But I was reflecting on kind of my journey as it were, but not like from being a child, like literally that kind of not having that confidence to even really explore who I was because I was so conscious of being the weird, Awkward, you know, I spoke German for the first three years of my life, then was like, mum, no one can understand me, can I learn English? So it just felt like, am I pronouncing things right? Am I using the context right? Am I using the right words? And I was very. Aware of that and that kind of lack of self confidence has like massively impacted how I showed up for most of my life because I always was like, well, if everybody else likes that film, then I like that film. So It's so easy to get caught up in doing, doing, doing, that we don't stop. We don't have a phoneless day. I mean, that fills me with a little bit of dread. What do you mean, I'm not, I'm not contactable. I mean, I grew up when there wasn't such a thing as a mobile phone. But the idea now of going out the house and leaving my phone at home.

But what if something happens, like maybe I watch too much like dramas on TV where there's someone like uncontactable, lost somewhere but it is with, I think actually like most of us will carry our phones with us from room to room and like even Evie will pick up the phone and hand it to me if she, if I've just, cause I generally just abandon it someplace and then lose it and she's here you go mummy, she's not even two yet. And she. Sees that phone as an extent, extension of me, rather than just like some useful tool that's on the work surface. So we don't, we're not quiet, but I know that my biggest inspirations come when I have been silent. So if I've taken that time out. And just not thought, just be present in the moment. That's when the inspiration comes, but it's really hard to do it. Isn't it? 

Nicola: Of course you can start with like a two hour block. Like I regularly now put my phone on, on flight mode or just turn it off for a couple of hours, put it in a drawer. Start that way. I went cold turkey cause that's always how I roll. I'm like, let's just see how this works. And also like when I go out in nature, often I don't have a signal anyway. And I like camping, a wild camping where I wouldn't have it for like two days. And I conveniently smashed my phone just before I went on a holiday and then had no internet and a dodgy broken screen. So I've just had like nearly 10 days. And it's amazing. We, we have so much gold within absolute gold within us. Every time we pick up our phone. We're looking at somebody else's gold, or we're looking at something that's funny, or we're never tapping into what's inside of us because we've got so many distractions all the time. And the very best way to unstick ourselves is to get rid of all distractions and find the gold that's there. In us that we've, we've lost, we've lost. And everything I do is about helping people to strip back everything that's got in the way and find the real us. And actually when we were traveling, that's, I suppose, a little bit of what we were doing. I mean, back then we were like, I don't know, early twenties. I definitely was. 

Claudia: And I I was like 26, I think. 

Nicola: I mean, I didn't have a bloody clue who I was. It was like the first time I'd ever even thought what might I like to do. And I pretty much. I went by myself and I was there for like four and a half months and it was the most empowering thing I ever did, but I actually only booked that because I'd burnt out from working in my, my first ever job. And I just had no clue about anything. And I, and, oh, it's been a long old road since then. I feel like I've been reborn at least, at least three different times since then. But yeah, that, that was, I suppose, the first time we didn't even have. I had a phone, but I didn't have a smartphone back then. 

Claudia: Oh no, we had to like go to an internet cafe if we wanted to like, zoom like, not zoom, Skype home. And I think me and my sister shared a phone. I know we shared a phone in New Zealand, but in Australia, I think we had our own phones. But it was like this huge old thing that like, I'm not sure it got the internet on it. I don't think, I definitely don't think there was internet on my phone. That's why I think we had to go to the internet cafes, but yeah, we 

Nicola: survived and we did amazing things. Right. And we'll forget that we, we can actually do more amazing things when we leave the phone at home. I'm so tempted to just not have one altogether, but kind of need it a lot for my business. I'm always torn between like, do I get a new phone or do I get no phone? But I'm not quite there yet to the point where I can see it.

Claudia: No, I, I do get regularly like that kind of overwhelm. So when I look at all these emails rushing into my inbox, that I'm like, who even are you? I've clearly like done a quiz or something online and now they're sending me things. But I'm like, really hope the people on my mailing list don't go, Oh, who's Claudia, where's she coming from? But it's. I don't know, it's just one of those things, like there's just so much stimulation. So it's, you know, notifications. I'm really conscious about my notifications. Although I do have a really nice one that I like, which is like it's a reminder app. You can put affirmations in it and it just pops up at random times during the day. Love that one. That's the only notification I generally like. I'm like, Oh yes, I like that. But yeah, we get so distracted. But then also I think we have this strange relationship that they're like, well, I can't not take the phone with me because I might miss something. Well, you're actually missing your life.

Nicola: Yeah, you nailed it there. nail the potential of, of what you're capable of seeing and doing and achieving. And we need a bit of a struggle sometimes if somebody struggles to get hold of you. There's learnings in, in all of this, like, and also you have to be a little bit rational. If you do go for 2 hours, what is the most that some that's going to happen in 2 hours? I know when you have kids, it does ramp up a notch and you could still have it on. Do not disturb at the bottom of your bag. So someone could call you in an emergency. Like there's ways around it. Like we just tell ourselves it's too difficult. But I've had many, many parents tell me that it's too difficult because they've got kids and I'm like, well, let's just unpick that little bit. And then, and then they try in 

Claudia: the end. Cause Do Not Disturb, you can either put select numbers to come through, or if someone rings twice in like immediate succession, they get through. So because both me and my partner sleep with Do Not Disturb mode on. Cause I'm a very light sleeper. So if there was an issue, anybody knows it's ring twice and it will come through and then I'll hear it.

Nicola: But we're living in such a state of anxiety that we're always worried that something bad is going to happen. Yeah, 

Claudia: not like, what if something good is going to happen? Yeah. So talking about that switching off, that disconnecting and getting out in nature by yourself kind of links me really nicely to your adventures that you've been setting up. Where you're blending adventures with coaching. So would you like to tell me a little bit more about that? 

Nicola: Oh, I'm so glad because I was like, how do I? I really, that time, that time that I was telling you about when it was November and I was hiking a mountain near where we live now, and I was like, I really want to work in the outdoors, but I really love coaching and occupational therapy. And I don't want to train to be a mountain, mountain guide or something and then lose the, I mean, I'd love the idea of that, but I was like, I'm done retraining. Come on. I was like, how can I blend everything? And then I just put it on the back burner a little bit and I just focused on my coaching. And then it happened a little bit organically.

Because one of my clients at the time was a mountain instructor wanting to get more experience. I was like, look, you want to get more experience. I want to run outdoorsy things. Let's see how it can go. And I told her about the idea that I'd been thinking about for a while, free spirited weekends where my fellow hippies and I get together and we completely go wild. Disconnect from the expectations of daily life and we just go a little bit primitive. Like, we're not talking, we're not like whittling things out of wood and eating berries, although we did eat some berries, we're not going like fully Bear Grylls, but we want to, to, to hear ourselves and connect with ourselves and get rid of the Busyness of everyday life. And so the, the plan is to have at least a weekend. Eventually I want to have longer, like adventure excursions and retreats and things where we, we spend time in nature. We do things that are our bodies know and understand, but have lost over the years. You know, like sleeping outdoors under the stars, cooking a meal outside. Being with other like minded people, being in a tribe, you know, this, this this concept of evolutionary mismatch comes up a lot in the work that I do where we're, we've still got these kind of cavemen bodies and minds, but now we're living in this really digital society. And that is why so many times we feel this Disconnect, or we feel burnt out, or we just feel exhausted all the time. And it's like, well, you've just plonked a body that's used to thousands and thousands and thousands of years of, of being outdoors and being active, and you've put them behind a desk all day and you're like, why are you so unhappy?

So, so the free spirited retreats and adventures is our way of like connecting with that part of ourselves that we've often lost. You don't have to love being in the outdoors. You just have to feel like. I have a mild level of intrigue and I want to explore it further. So we did a pilot of it back in June. I think it was in Wales. It was, it was like, I don't even know how to put it into words. Like for sure. The best thing, best thing ever that I've ever done. But it was like a euphoria for all of us where everything just. We had people that were comfortable in the outdoors there, and then we had some people that were not so comfortable in the outdoors and we're terrified. And my, wow, I think I can say her name, former client, Katie, who was running it. She had loads and loads of experience in the outdoors, but was lacking in confidence. So she. Helps us like with navigation, with how to know what to pack, how to know how to cook things outdoors, how to set up a bloody tent, how to sleep in a tent in a storm and not freak out, which is one of my, I do a lot of camping, but not often like solo. Anyway, so we did all of that stuff, but we had a, like, A group get together a little bit before, so everyone was comfortable with each other. And then they had, we obviously talked all throughout and we got very comfortable with each other and we talked about our hopes and our dreams and our lives and all of that good, deep stuff that you don't have to make small talk when you're out on a mountain getting drenched in Wales with other people.

And then we had coaching sessions afterwards as well to follow up because everybody had like a shift inside of them, me included, way bigger than I thought I was going to have because it was like, Oh, crap. This is 100 percent what I need to be doing. We all had a bit of a shift. And so being able to support them afterwards and see a physical change take place in their lives, as well as just talking about the change and seeing them have this confidence that wasn't there before. That they could apply it, but it makes you feel so tough when you're outside being battered by the elements, it makes you feel like I can do anything. And so we take that, we bottle it and we go, right, what we're going to do with it. Now, how are we going to, how are we going to move on with this? And I want to do more of those basically. And we are planning a meeting with somebody in October to start planning a bunch of dates for next year. That will be in the UK and hopefully soon in Switzerland. I'm just trying to find the right people to collaborate with here in Switzerland. Because like I said, I don't do the, I've got a lot of experience in the outdoors, but I don't want to be the one leading on the outdoors. I'm the one to hold space for people and their, and their emotions and not be worrying about who's got the right, like, compass. Yeah, I 

Claudia: think that's. It's knowing when to outsource, isn't it? It's kind of like, well, I can do it, but actually I'm much better served holding that space, supporting everybody and letting somebody else take care of the, you know, the practicalities of, are we up the right mountain? Exactly, if it were up to 

Nicola: me, I'd be like, but let's talk about our childhood trauma and then we're completely on the wrong path and we've got one hour to get back. So I need, I need to outsource that sort of stuff. It's such a laugh as well. Like we don't have, we sometimes we talk about serious stuff, but sometimes, sometimes we're just rolling on the floor laughing genuinely. And so Free Spirit Weekends was born in June and next year by the end of October. Hopefully I'll have lots of dates lined up for next year. And I just, I'm just excited to see where it goes. Like I'm blending coaching with the outdoors, coaching with therapy in the outdoors, and I just. I just didn't know how that was going to happen until it happened.

Claudia: That sounds absolutely amazing. So presumably you'll be pasting the details of those events on your socials and to your mailing list. And I'll pop all of those details in the show notes. Yeah, it just sounds absolutely fantastic. The coaching sessions that you said as a follow up, is that? During the break, or is that once they've gone home? 

Nicola: No, once they've gone home and they've had some time to decompress, unpack all their stinky things. And a couple of days later just be like, so what came up for you? You know, what, how is this, how is this? Because people that come on the Free Spirited Weekend, they don't have to have Been having coaching with me at all. This is a different thing, right? It actually works better if they're not currently in coaching right now, because they feel like they can be more comfortable because I'm often going to be there. Right. And we do a lot of like bonding on that trip. They might want to separate that from, from their lives. So yeah, we would do that afterwards, but separate from that, they can. Have blocks of six coaching with me and, and go on a sort of program with me if they wanted to as well because there's just, there's so much to unpick in our, in the complexities of, of being human and having these emotions and navigating our way through this very difficult life.

Claudia: I feel like I could talk to you forever. But I do, I'm really conscious. I want to give you a chance to talk about the doing things differently community and promote that a little bit more. So would you like to share any more about that? 

Nicola: Yeah, well, I've called it doing things differently, but really it, it, that is just what coaching with me is really, I guess I call it like coaching but different. And so doing things differently again was, was created organically. It was just, I was coaching a lot of people at the time. Who were so similar and were going through such similar things. I was like, do you want to have a group chat together? And then they all started supporting each other so beautifully that they're now the original people that started it all pretty much finished with me, but they're all supporting each other and the things that they've started when they were having coaching with me, we've got yoga teachers in there, we've got a professional climber, we've got somebody that's starting a business. So whenever they start their own things, they're all supporting each other through that. And I don't go in there and monitor it. I'm, I'm there, but I don't offer sort of coaching in there. They're like helping each other. So that's wonderful. That's, that's why it then got called the doing things differently community, but essentially what it is, it's one to one coaching with me.

And then if they want to be in that group chat with the others, then they can do but some people are a bit more shy or they're having a bit more businessy coaching because I do a little bit of that as well, so they don't necessarily join the community, but. Everybody that I do work with is usually drawn to me because they are a little bit similar to me in some ways or to my story. So they are people that like to do things differently. I've got the artists, I've got the sporty people, I've got the entrepreneurs, lots of neurodivergent people in there as well. So the name just encompasses all of it. It's like people that are wanting to, wanting to do things differently. That doesn't mean that they have to Necessarily like quit their job and go off and like live in the woods and start a YouTube channel, whatever like that, it's just, we can't keep doing the same thing and expecting the same results. That's what it started from. It's like, we have to take a chance, make a change, all of that, the three C's. Yeah, so it's one to one coaching with me blocks of six sessions. We usually do at least 12 that actually have. Concrete, long lasting changes. They have loads and loads of changes in, in, in the six sessions, but in order to create habits that actually last a really long time, you know what it's like. We have to just keep doing stuff over and over again. So we do a lot of like cognitive reprogramming. We look at our values, our beliefs, we look at our challenges, our fears, all of that good stuff that you will know very well and then lots of accountability. Making a plan and me kicking people up the bum in a, and sometimes in a very nice and gentle way. Other times, and then they might need a little bit more. I ask them, I'm led by them. I have some people that are like, I need to kick up the arse and then I have other people that need a much more gentle approach. And I think that's where my therapy background comes into because. I can, I adjust myself based on whoever is in front of me at the time, and we will have quite a different relationship, even if they're very similar in lots of ways. I just, I work with the best people ever. I just adore them. And now I love that they're They're taking up space a little bit more. They're helping each other. They might share on my Facebook group a little bit more and say what they're doing. And I'm just like, yes, I call them quietly powerful people that I work with because they have this inner power that is their potential, their passion, their, their fire, and they've not given themselves permission to utilize it yet. And all I do is help them find it. Yeah. Through all my witchery, really what I'm doing is just helping them find their own, their own power. And then they hear you. They kind of explode, eh, in a really wonderful, beautiful way. 

Claudia: Cause you've given them that safety to open up and really explore what is, what's their magic? What, you know, what, what have they got that they need to share with everybody? Yeah, exactly. And actually that permission. So I've got a little free resource called permission granted and it is, it's not me giving you permission. It's about you giving your own permission, isn't it? Sometimes we actually need to go and work with a coach to actually realize that actually the power is inside us because we've squashed it down over all those years and been told, you know, good girls don't, don't talk, or you know, don't make a mess, do this. Don't have strong opinions. 

Nicola: Exactly. Yeah. Don't upset people. I work with a lot of people pleasers and they're like. But, but everybody else is doing this thing and this is exactly how I was. Everybody else is doing this thing. I don't want to be the odd one out or I don't want to upset, I don't want to let people down. And then I don't just say to them, well, you've got to do that because that's in your, you know, that's in your path. I'm like, let's just unpeel the layers gradually, gradually. But by the time that we've done that, they're ready to unfold anyway, you know, and it all comes, everybody's got their own timeframe for their, their unfolding and I'm just there to help them feel safe. And empowered and seen so that then they can do it. And then I get to watch it and just be like, yeah. And 

Claudia: that thing about not standing out from the crowd links perfectly to what you said at the beginning about that evolutionary mismatch is that on an evolutionary basis, it was dangerous to stand out from the crowd because if you were outside of the group, you wouldn't survive. There's safety in numbers. So. Oh, it's absolutely been a fantastic conversation as like a final thought. Do you have anything that our listeners could take away to implement in their lives after listening to us? 

Nicola: Phone less Sunday, getting outdoor, connecting to nature, unfollowing anybody on social media that doesn't make you feel amazing. That's a big one. Not comparing yourself to anybody around you, getting, not seeing what they're doing so that you can focus on you. And just giving yourself permission, talking to your, talking to yourself like you absolutely love yourself. Like they're your, your kid or your best friend and you're bigging them up so much. That's the sort of dialogue we need to be having with ourselves. Like, Oh, you want to do that thing? You bloody do that thing. You're amazing. Having that internal dialogue really, really helps. And we only hear that when we're by ourselves. So I think I'm encouraging everybody to go and be an absolute loner now, but that's not, I'm all about community and being around others, but it's just. When it comes to our intuition, I find that being alone helps the most with that. Suppose 

Claudia: it's having a balance, isn't it? Yeah. Having that, that balance in your life is right.

Nicola: That's right. And then find your people and be with them when you, when you know and love who you are. Oh, there's so many things I wanna say. I can see the little, the time it ticking away and I'm like, oh no, 

Claudia: It's been absolutely fantastic talking to you and we'll just have to have you come back to say all the other things you want to say. I've got many more points. I'm going to drop a link in the show notes because Nicola, we haven't spoken about it, but she's got an absolutely fantastic free resource on Is it Money Mindset? And so that is absolute gold. So I'll drop the link in the show notes. And watch this space because Nicola will be invited back again soon. Okay. 

Nicola: Bye. Thank you so much.