Janine Bolon: Hi, welcome to the Practical Mystic Show. This is Janine Bolon and as you know, with this goal show, what we’d like to do is bring on guests that have a shamanistic experience that do Reiki practitioners, we have mindset coaches. We have all kinds of people that work within their spiritual gifts and some of them make a living at what they love. That happens to totally identify one of the ladies we have today which is Rachel West who is a holistic personal growth coach. She’s a certified trainer, breakthrough expert, best-selling author, and founder of empowering growth. She’s a Certified Master Neuro-linguistic Programming Practitioner. She’s a Master Timeline Therapy Practitioner, Master Coach and this is one of the things that really draws me to her is she’s a Domestic Violence Victims advocate and a Community Health Worker. Rachel specializes in mindset and mental health which doing all that she does, you would have to have some stability and your mental health to do all the stuff she does. But she also helps individuals do the inner emotional healing and trauma work to discover the roots to what is holding them back and preventing you from moving forward in the areas that you struggle in most. She understands firsthand how to release negative mental material, emotional, and behavioral programming, and helps you feel better, hear and see new possibilities simply by shifting your mindset and your thoughts so that you can achieve the results you desire at a much higher level. To learn more about Rachel, stick around, listen, and then at the end of this episode, we’ll have a couple of links for you in the notes and she’ll let us know. So, welcome so much to the show.
Rachel: Thank you for having me, Janine. I’m so excited to be here today.
Janine: One of the things I love about what you do is the fact that not only are you an author, but you’ve had your own personal journey. So it’s not like, “Oh, I’m trying to coach something that I don’t know anything about.” You are very intimately involved with having, as you were telling me before we started recording, having experiences but not having a label for them. So talk to me a little bit about. Okay, when you actually started understanding the type of spiritual experiences you were having and then you finally had a label form. So kind of take us through a little bit of that journey, if you don’t mind.
Rachel: Yeah. So in the past, I had a lot of family members struggle with addictions, from alcohol to drugs, gambling, self-harm. I witnessed a lot. As I was watching these people around me kind of deconstruct and fall apart, I always had this gift and I knew I had this gift but I never identified that it was a higher power that it was a spiritual type of power. What it was is that I always saw them outside of their physical self, past their behaviors and actions that they were doing. I saw their true self and I saw their true potential of who they could be outside of this struggle. Starting my coaching business, I knew going in that I had this gift and I knew that that was going to set me apart from other coaches that are out there. Other life coaches, mental health coaches and it wasn’t until recently that I started seeing other times in my life as I kind of reflected back that there were other moments that I had these spiritual gifts that I didn’t know they were spiritual gifts. I’ve always considered myself a spiritual being, knew that there was a higher power, and was very interested in learning more. I was born in the Catholic religion and knew very early on that that wasn’t my path. I didn’t know why. This was like at the age of 10 that I had this discovery. I didn’t know why that it wasn’t congruent with me or aligned with me. I just had this sense. And so, ever since I was 14 years old because I stopped going to the Church at ten. I had this realization. I stopped going. Then at 14, I felt something was missing. I wanted that that spirituality, that higher power but I didn’t know what that looked like for me or what that was. So at the age of 14, I kind of began that discovery and again I thought it was in the Church. So I started visiting different types of religions in their Church to see which one was for me and I am still in that process. I’m still learning. I would say now I’m definitely more spiritual and have this belief that no matter what you believe, it’s all a higher power. It’s all your higher self. So I have been learning more spiritual modalities and incorporating them into my life. It’s really a fun journey learning and discovering about these gifts that I always had and never knew that I had them.
Janine: You’re definitely what I lovingly and affectionately call a recovering Catholic. So I’m one of those too. So very much raised in the Catholic faith, and I was a little bit slower than you were, I waited until I was 17 and went, “Oh, so done.” Right? I just knew that that wasn’t going to be a path I wanted to walk. So one of the things that’s wonderful about the spiritual path, though, is that until the day you die, you’re still, you’re working progress. I don’t think we ever all learn everything there is to know about that work that we’re doing. But what I’d love to learn now about you is, so you had this awakening of “This is not my path” at age 10 and a lot of times, our spiritual path really starts with what we don’t want to do. Like we’re very clear, it may not be and we may not have clarity on what we’re supposed to do or where we’re supposed to go but we have definite clarity on “It’s not that.” We can look at that and say that “That’s not it. That’s not gonna help me.” So you got into neuro-linguistic programming, do you mind giving us a little bit of a definition about what that is? And, I’d love to learn from you, what inspired you to move in that direction?
Rachel: Yeah. So NLP is the science and study of how your brain processes information. The science and study of how you communicate internally with yourself and externally with other people. And, the science and study of your internal programming and your internal programming is made up of your beliefs, your behaviors, your attitude, your habits, and your perception. So I stumbled into NLP. I came across it. I had never heard of it before. I had no idea what it was. I found myself at a six-hour boot camp that my business partner at the time said that I should go to. So I went and discovered possibilities in that six hours. If I could learn how people communicate, how they process information, then I could help them on a much deeper level. This was for my marketing business so I was thinking communication. Going through the NLP program, I discovered that I no longer wanted to use these tools and modalities for marketing, for communication. That I wanted to use them to help people who were struggling in those areas of life that they just were feeling stuck through the addictions, through depression, through the negative self-talk, and use these gifts that I have been discovering about myself in that ability to see them in their higher self and help them discover that for themselves and help them on a much more personal level. So I traded the marketing for personal.
Janine: That made sense. When did the becoming the founder of empowering growth? When did that happen? Because that seems like a perfect lead-in from what you’re describing about, “Okay, now I want to get very personal with people and help them feel that power that’s already within.” So when did all that happen?
Rachel: I can tell you the moment that it happened. It was I was doing some personal work using NLP modalities and I was working with my partner and this is like 11-hour session. It’s like digging in the dirt and pulling out all the weeds and discovering all about yourself, working through emotions, the healing, the trauma, work. So as I’m working with her, I’m telling her that I don’t know what’s coming. But something’s happening. I can feel it in my body. It’s just like waves going through my body and this eagerness that my bottom is coming again. See, I have been repeating this pattern of hitting my bottom. When I say bottom, it was something that I used as motivation, kind of a wake-up call to do what I wanted to do. So I needed that bottom to come so I could have that motivation to do what I wanted to do. So this pattern was coming again. Unknown at this time and I’m telling her this. I’m waiting for my bottom to come. I can feel that it’s coming because it’s going all through my body. I’m so excited for it. I’m excited for this crash and burn to happen so I can use that as motivation to do what I wanted to do. As I’m saying that I stop dead in my tracks and realize what I’m saying out loud. Why am I waiting for this crash and burn my bottom to happen for me to do what I want to do? Why don’t I just do it?
Janine: Right. So you’re talking about hitting rock bottom, right?
Rachel: Yeah. And I [crosstalk]…
Janine: You’re talking about hitting rock bottom so I just wanted to clarify that. So you’ve realized, “Wait a minute. Why am I waiting? Let’s just do it.” So what happened after that?
Rachel: Yeah. So I have this graphic design business that I’ve had for four years with this partner. And not only am I having this realization about my bottom and my pattern that I’ve been repeating over and over. I also realized a lot about my partnership that it’s like, “Oh, we came together. We had a great friendship and a great partnership and we’re still friends. However, in a business standpoint, we had different visions for what we wanted that to look like.” And so, through this day-long session, I discover this rock bottom pattern that I’m having this conflict of our goal to envision for this graphic design company and that are not aligned with this graphic design company, that I have just been checking off boxes in life because that’s what I was told to do. And so, these three things combined gave me… It was like a light switch. And yes, I can do it now. I don’t have to wait for the crash and burn. I realize I’m aware now that, yeah, we’re still friends and we made good business partners up until that point. And now, we have different paths and views so we can go our separate ways and I’m not aligned with this because it wasn’t really fulfilling me. It wasn’t my purpose. That all combined made it easily for me to switch. I mean, I switched in less than three months, from graphic design to life coaching.
Janine: And that is a huge transformation in a very short period of time. What I loved about it was you were not judgmental towards yourself. You were looking at all those markers like I’m happy about this, I’m looking forward to this, I’m not, we’re both gonna stay friends, I’m just not in alignment with this vision anymore. So there wasn’t any of that self-judgment. So that’s one of the things that I was really impressed with about your perspective and also what you write about and that is you have these steps that people can take to trade that self-judgment, and so that they can then see huge possibilities. Do you mind walking us through that for a bit?
Rachel: Yeah, so trading self-judgment for possibilities. So through my work, I’ve discovered that a lot of people they do that. They beat themselves up for something that happened. So because I had these tools from NLP, I think that’s why I didn’t beat myself up. Had I not had those tools, I think I would have. And, because my partner was also going through the NLP training alongside of me, she also had the tools. So we understood where each other were at and understood and just appreciated each other. Like, she wanted the graphic design business and wanted to run it her wayand I let her do that because I no longer wanted to have it and I wanted to do coaching. So she supported me, I supported her and it all worked out. Now, somebody not having those tools might beat themselves up which is why I came up with the trading self-judgment for possibilities. So you want to discover the negative self-talk. That little voice that’s inside your head. The one that just said I don’t have a voice inside my head. That one. That’s the one you need to really listen to and pay attention to. As the thoughts are coming in your mind, the statistics say that, I think it’s, we get 90,000 thoughts come in our mind every single day from our sensory. So it’s like the lights on, your heart’s pumping, your eyes are blinking, the air conditioning is on. So we have all this sensory stuff around us going on. So 90,000 things are coming at us 80,000 of those things are things that you don’t want to happen and are negative. Most people are focusing on those things, the majority of their day. So if you can become in tune with the thoughts that you’re having and pay attention to them so that you can start shifting them one at a time to positive thoughts. Every positive has to have a negative. So whatever your thought is, what’s the opposite of that? And, where are those thoughts coming from? So you have a thought, I’m thinking X and this thought is making me feel X. So the thought is coming from an emotion. So if you can identify the thought and then identify the emotion that’s attached to it, you can switch it to the positive. As you keep doing that, the more you do that, the more your possibilities open for you.
Janine: Okay. So that’s the theory. One of the things I absolutely adore about Rachel is she can get very specific for us. But she always goes into teacher mode, and she likes to give the big picture. So thank you so much for that. Now, we need examples. Some of us don’t learn well without having an example. So can you tell us something that walks us through that process?
Rachel: Yes. So you have a thought come in your mind. “I’m a failure. I tried this and it didn’t work out and I’m a failure.” Now, something you could switch that to is “When I fail, I learned what doesn’t work.” So how do you do this, you can keep track of it. So you can set a timer on your phone, it could be every 15 minutes, every hour, every four hours, once a day. Whatever it is for you, the more the better. When the timer goes off, you write down “What am I thinking right now in this moment? Is it positive or negative and what feeling is attached to this?” I feel like I’m a failure. That’s negative and that makes me feel sad. And so, every time your timer goes off, you’re doing this. Then, after a certain period of time, you have this collection of data of the thoughts that you’re having. Then you can evaluate, are the majority of the things I’m thinking negative, are there some positive, am I beating myself up consistently? What is happening in that pattern of thoughts? Then, physically start switching them. So on your paper, it says, I’m a failure, negative thought makes me feel sad. What’s the opposite of that? Or, my example, when I fail, I learned what doesn’t work. You do that for every thought. It takes time and it takes dedication. The more you do it, the easier it gets. Because then, you don’t have to write it down anymore. You’ll get to the point where the thought will just pop in your head, you’ll think of it or hear it immediately and you can just switch it by saying, “Oh, I just had the thought ‘I’m a failure.’ I’m going to switch it. When I fail. I learned what doesn’t work.” And then eventually, that turns into positive thoughts consistently happening and the negative ones go away.
Janine: One of the things that I have seen Rachel do not only in her own life but also with those of her clients is the fact that some people say this takes a long time or they’re looking at it from the perspective of it’s taken me two months. Well, remember, you may have been on planet for 30 or 40 years. This process is actually quite fast and you can go from pulling yourself out of the brink of depression so that you move into anger and blame and you can move up that emotional ladder. So eventually, that these thoughts that are coming even though they may seem negative at the time, we’re not asking you to put a happy face sticker on your emotions, we’re just asking you to examine where the thoughts are coming from. Because when you start analyzing and being very aware of your thought process, it’s amazing how much traction you can get in such a short period of time to “This is not serving me.” Right? And so, tell us a little bit about, we’ve got about five minutes here. But tell us a little bit about how you go from, “Okay, I need to switch it.” Maybe I have a thought or an emotion that is so strong that I don’t know how to flip it. Is there like a step or something I can do or some sort of inspiration that you can give us to kind of when you get stuck, right? I mean, other than call you, maybe it’s 2 a.m., right? So I can’t speed-dial Rachel today right now at this moment but what is something that can help me get out of that dark place for that moment?
Rachel: Find something that works for you. So whether that’s playing a song that’s motivating, uplifting. You can pop on your phone, on YouTube, or Spotify or whatever you listen to and that will pull you out of it. You can call a friend. You can, somebody who is where you’re at or where you want to be, that can pull you out of that little funk. If it’s 2 a.m., obviously, you’re not going to call a friend. There’s also a ton of spiritual modalities that you can do to going on shamanic journeys. If you learn how to go on a shamanic journey, that’s a huge one for me. I will just get in a quiet place. I’ll go on a journey, and just be open to what my higher self has for me. That always puts me in a better mood. And, if you don’t have those tools, YouTube is a good resource for starters. There’s meditations that you can do that will pull you out of any struggle that you’re going through for anxiety, for depression, for feeling sad, or angry. Whatever you’re going through, there’s probably a meditation that you could use. And if you do have those tools, then you know where to find them. You’re going to use that to pull you out of that.
Janine: And so what I recommend for you, my dear listeners, you’re listening to the show is definitely go on to YouTube now. While you’re in a good place, while you’re in a place where you’re feeling fairly peaceful and calm, build out these playlists now. This way, you’re kind of helping your future self because you know, life is going to create some sort of challenges for you because you didn’t come on to this planet to have an easy ride. I know we think you did. But in actuality, we came onto this planet to express and evolve. So I highly recommend you build out these playlists ahead of time. And actually, I love it and Rachel mentioned all this because my kids actually have playlists for when they’re having different emotional states. They’re the ones that taught me how to go about using playlists on YouTube. They talk about how if they get down in a funk and they’re feeling really awful and they want to be pulled out of it, they have they know exactly their playlist. So I encourage you to build those now. In that way, you have them so you’re not trying to dig around and get this before. So we’re about out of time. Rachel, you’ve been so helpful. Thank you so much. Talk to us a little bit about your book, if you don’t mind.
Rachel: Yes, I have a book called The Successful Woman’s Mindset. It’s a co-authored book, 21 women, 21 stories to success. My chapter is called Journey to Your Value Within and it’s all about limiting beliefs. I’m sharing my story and different events that happened within my life including being raised Catholic, and how that created a belief within myself that didn’t serve me. And upon doing personal development work and growing myself, I discovered those beliefs that no longer served me and release them. And when I did that, the possibilities for myself opened. It can be the same for you. It’s just all about discovering what beliefs you have that are limiting you and releasing them.
Janine: So that was Rachel West, a holistic personal growth coach, certified trainer, breakthrough expert, and master neuro-linguistic programming practitioner. You can learn more about Rachel as well as see some of the programs she has and services, visit her website at empoweringgrowthcoach.com it will also be linked in the show notes. Rachel, thanks so much for sharing so much of your time with us today.
Rachel: Thank you.
Janine: Have a great day, everybody. This is Janine Bolon with the Practical Mystic Show. Remember, keep your feet firmly on the ground. Keep processing data as fast as you can without hurting yourself and don’t forget to reach for those stars because you both know that you will evolve to where you will be able to achieve those dreams. Have a great day.
[END]
