Alisha Leytem: Hello everyone! Welcome back to the show. I am really thrilled to have our first guest of 2023. Her name is Rachel Joy! She has a special place in my heart because we have gone back a long time.
We were just chatting before hopping on to record this episode for you guys and we were talking about all the changes and pivots that have happened in life. One thing we were talking about was something that Rachel really specializes in, which is helping parents transform their healing and their healing with their child. Therefore, we can break this generational trauma with everything that is happening.
I am really excited to dive into this topic with Rachel today. Before we start I have to ask you a question. The name of the show is Unlock Your Well-Being. So, how do you unlock your well-being?
Rachel Joy: I think this changes constantly depending on what phase or chapter I am in within my life. It really starts with an inventory. What are those inner thoughts that are going on in my mind, where am I in my current reality compared to where I want to be in my current reality? That thought really portrays what type of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that are going on inside of your mind.
What you execute on is what you create in your reality. So if I want a healthy body, for example, and my reality isn’t showing that, then chances are that there are some thoughts or behaviors that are initiated in my mind. Particularly the subconscious, that is not supporting me in having that healthy body.
Same goes for business, sanity, happiness, and mental health. It really starts with that inventory of “who do I want to be today?” and “am I living up to that level of embodiment”, which is beliefs, values, and identity of the version or person of me who resembles that desired result.
Alisha Leytem: So if someone wants to be a healthier person, but they don’t feel that for themselves, how would you suggest they start to identify their thought process? How to uncover their blocks?
Rachel Joy: Acceptance is number one. Then I can see I am not where I want to be yet, and where is it that I want to be. Acceptance and clarity. Where is that I want to be, who is it that I want to be? What does it mean to be healthy for you? Because some people define health differently than others.
For me personally, health is a healthy body, with good muscle mass and low body fat. It’s also having an immense amount of energy to be able to chase down my toddler and show up for my work day. It’s being able to be fully present in my life.
So now that I have the clarity, what type of person is happy? What type of person has energy/ What are activities and actions in my life that I need to take that will allow me to show up as a healthy or energetic person? I would definitely need a minimum of 6 hours of sleep. I am a mom of a toddler, that’s why I am saying 6. That would have been 8 if you would have asked me that question 2 years ago.
I am probably putting very nourishing filled foods into my body and limiting fast food, even though I love my drive through coffee. I can easily make my coffee at home and put some collagen in it to enhance that nourishment. So you really have to trace it backwards.
Alisha Leytem: Really starting with your vision and asking yourself what am I trying to create? And what behaviors does that healthy person act on? If they still know that and they aren’t able to step into that, how can they identify the thoughts that are around them and prevent them from taking that step?
Rachel Joy: I feel like this is where your area of expertise comes in, which is a practice of mindfulness. We cannot even identify those feelings of “oh I want to create this change, but it’s not really sticking”, it’s hard for us to recognize and notice that it’s not really sticking if we are not moving through our day to day life with self awareness.
How we cultivate self awareness is through the process of practicing mindfulness. Mindfulness meditations, mindfulness exercises, that have to show up in our day a lot more intentionally. From a bird's eye view, you have to dissociate a little. Take that second objective of watching yourself through life rather than going through life on auto-pilot.
Alisha Leytem: That’s one of the cool things about meditating is that you can move yourself from your thoughts and become like the “seer” of your thoughts. Then as you are dissociated from it you can recognize it, work through it, and not judge it as much because you aren’t in it.
You kind of see it as an outsider which helps you to identify what that next move is for you with a clearer mind. Tell me how you’ve been able to teach this type of work to your toddler?
Rachel Joy: Well here’s the thing about parenting and how I have pivoted this. I have noticed that it’s not so much about how do we get our kids to listen to us or how do we teach our kids this, but more so how do we practice these things for ourselves, so that we can be the change and we can automatically get modeled to our children.
You’ve probably already experienced this with your little girl, but you will be having a conversation with your husband and you have this lingo word that you use and all of a sudden she’s repeating it back to you. I noticed that my son has adapted these mannerisms or characteristics and whenever I ask him where he got them he says “nobody.”
No one necessarily taught him, but he saw it and it was modeled. So, while in a way we did teach him, it was more subconsciously than intentional teaching. Our children are literally walking subconscious sponges especially between the ages 0-7 they are taking so much in. The more you can model that for your child of what it is that you want them to have weather its resilience, calm, or happiness. For me in particular my focus is centered around resilience because life happens and it's not about putting band-aids over those boo boos and pretending those boo boos never happened. It’s figuring out how to heal those boo boos.
I’ve learned that it’s a much more eccentric approach. It’s not about teaching your kids, it's about re-teaching you. In the re-teaching and healing you, you intentionally are able to support, heal, and change the chain reaction of future generations.
Alisha Leytem: I get this a lot with people observing. They will ask “how did you teach your daughter that” and it’s usually things that I don’t teach her. She is just doing it. Even recently, if I am practicing yoga in front of her, she will go downward. I didn’t tell her that she just started doing it with me. Now she’s cooking with me and she’s asking to stir things and stuff like that.
That’s just straight modeling, like you’re saying. I think this is really important in how we are consciously parenting. Our generation is really figuring out that we are going to teach them by how we lead them.
Rachel Joy: It’s a great thing to ask yourself too. If there is something going on with your child, what am I resembling in my language or behavior, or even energy. There are unspoken things that we go through that our children can pick up on. What’s resembling my behavior could be a reaction of my child.
An example would be, obviously terrible twos is a thing and my husband, Daniel, and I will always say we have a really good kid. The tantrums aren’t too bad. If he can’t get what he wants then he can understand why and move on. We are very blessed in that way.
I do think it is because of the work that we practice, which is complete ownership of our nervous system. What I have noticed is when he has these odd weeks where he’s super agitated or cranky it’s usually traced down to when Daniel and I are more short tempered in our own life.
So now that’s the projection that is being poured onto him. That’s not the case at all because it usually means that we have not taken our own time to regulate our nervous system, so that we can show up in our relationship with our loved ones. Then we can model the way to react and experience our own world with our kid.
Alisha Leytem: You can’t help your child regulate their nervous system if yours isn’t regulated yourself. I think that if you really understand this you are able to sit with it. I saw a post a couple months ago that talked about the terrible twos and it says “Your toddler isn’t giving you a hard time, your toddler is having a hard time.”
When she has a really hard day like we all do I remind myself that she is a human being. She is just a little person having a hard time. She’s not giving me a hard time. So I need to, as her mom, be able to help her through that by staying calm myself.
Rachel Joy: If you don’t then she can dissociate that to feelings of unsafety or uncertainty, or her reality of bigger emotions aren’t valid. That’s how we grow up to be humans who don’t want to share our emotions or be vulnerable. We have been taught unintentionally through our subconscious. We’ve been taught that our feelings aren’t safe when we are at a young, vulnerable age where we are still making connections as to what reality is.
I’m sure many of us grew up in a generation where it was “oh be quiet, it’s not that bad” or “stop crying, you crybaby”. Those scenarios teach us that whatever we are feeling is not true. Then we start second guessing ourselves as adults. It contributes as to why we have a bunch of adults walking around that have the emotional intelligence of a teeneager, but two we feel lack of confidence. There is this real root way down the line that is that same insecurity just showing up in a different way.
Alisha Leytem: You can trace that self-doubt back to when you were learning the way that you could trust yourself or not. You essentially learned to not trust yourself. Say you fall and get hurt and then you're told “it's okay, you're okay.” You're not able to trust yourself and your emotions.
What I'm hearing is this is just so much bigger than like raising our children. This is raising the future and really changing healing at a conscious level for humanity.
Rachel Joy: Yeah I am I have a new program called transformational parenting because it’s about taking a parent-centered approach because it’s all about the parent. In my head I thought I needed to change the name because the title didn’t capture what it's all about.
Yes, it makes you a better parent, but it’s about doing your own damn work and recognizing what are those connections you made in your formative years. So that you can make sense of your reality today. You can heal and change that reality for the components that are not serving you. In essence that changes for generations to come not just your relationship with your child.
Alisha Leytem: It’s changing the world by changing the things you do at home. I just had a recent guest who is my acupuncturist nearby. He really centered his work around female health. In traditional Chinese medicine the woman is the seed of the world because we are the ones who give birth to children who contribute to the world.
Making sure that the woman is healthy, happy, and whole and in their sense of well-being is actually going to change the world with changing your family in your home. What I am saying is we can truly change things around us by changing how we do things in our home.
Rachel Joy: It’s not about having the perfect child or even about having the perfect life either. If you are trying to do that, good luck to you. You are probably going to learn along the way that that is just not how life is. It’s a matter of equipping your little person to have the skills and the emotional intelligence available to them to move through those ups and downs of life.
Plus supporting yourself in that exact same intelligence, so whatever that little person is going through absolutely no reflection of who you are as a person. Oftentimes as parents we get wrapped up in who our kid becomes and what that means about us. If we did a good job as a parent or if we didn’t. That’s not the case.
It’s to be able to have the emotional intelligence to recognize you are here to be a teacher, and they too are a teacher to you. Each projection of each individual's reality is exactly that. Their own reality and it doesn’t mean anything about you and vice versa.
Alisha Leytem: I learned becoming a mom helps you really see that. It's one thing to think that before you're a parent but then once you become a parent you think okay, I've heard this and now I really can't believe this and like to embody this of not needing her or him you know to turn out a certain way because that's not a reflection on me. We are really here to help each other, guide each other, and learn from each other.
What would you say to someone who feels like they have so much going on in their lives as a working parent, running a business, full-time job, or they have a couple kids at home trying to juggle it all. How can they feel like they are ready to change their parenting?
Rachel Joy: Two things came to mind. The first idea that came to mind was nervous system regulation. You need to be regulated in your emotions, body, and mind so that you can show up for your life and your children. Second thing that came to mind is that your children are depending on you. You have no choice. If you want a happy, healthy, successful, and “easy” life, you’re going to have to show up in that capacity.
Alisha Leytem: What are your favorite ways to regulate your nervous system?
Rachel Joy: The very first one is shaking. Stomping and shaking for 3 minutes. I usually will put on a high vibe song and then it turns into a little bit of a dance and by the end of it I am having fun.
Then another one that is super easy, which I have been doing in the car or on the go is to take your finger and rub it around your lips as if you are putting on lip balm. It’s something that is so quick and easy and nobody really knows.
Then another one that I have been working on is using my voice. So, humming and chanting, which also activates and strengthens the polyvagal. It’s also related to the throat chakra. I have issues with my throat chakra sometimes because I have thyroid issues and I also am a coach and speaker.
Alisha Leytem: I like that they are practical ones that you can do really fast.
Rachel Joy: That’s just the thing. We don’t want to be sitting here doing mediation for an hour to 90 minutes a day. Sometimes we just don’t have that time, especially as parents. Sometimes it has to just be quick, actionable, and in the moment. That’s all you need to just flip the switch on your nervous system. In a way we are electrical, energetic beings that we just have to flip the switch sometimes. By doing those practices we can find that balance.
Alisha Leytem: It’s super important to know how to regulate. I think it’s equally important to know when it’s regulated. Our listeners know the foundation of everything we do is helping you understand how to regulate your nervous system. One of my keys to success is knowing how to actively relax.
Knowing how to do it is one step, but knowing when it’s unregulated is the first step. What would you say are key indicators that you are dysregulated?
Rachel Joy: I recommend this is a practice we do everyday to manage our nervous systems and just support ourselves in that way. On a day to day basis we enter into fight or flight or the stress zone multiple times a day without even realizing it. How do we realize it?
An example of this is I will be working on my computer and I will see a notification from instagram. I will then switch tasks and go answer that DM on instagram. That is a stress response right then and there. A simple task of juggling tasks can show up as a stress response.
So, how do we notice that? Notice what is going on in your body. When I am stressed or dysregulated I will often stop breathing. I will hold my breath until I can’t breathe and then I will take a big sigh. Oftentimes I will sigh and my husband will ask “what’s wrong.” I would stop breathing because I was in a stress response.
Notice what is going on in your body. Is it tight? Are you eating properly? Are you breathing properly? Is there any tension there? Is there any vibrations? Next, notice what is in your mind. Is it very peaceful, calm, or are there a million thoughts? Are there a million thoughts that are exciting?
Even if your thoughts are exciting, it can still be dysregulated. You can be both dysregulated in an “up” place or a “down” place; it's just how we manage the dysregulation in our system.
Notice what’s going on in your body and in your thoughts. That starts with again the mediation and mindfulness that comes into play, the self-awareness, because the more you do that, the easier it is to catch yourself. You can also catch yourself in a moment.
A practice I like to do is imagine a thermometer and at the bottom of the thermometer is complete peace. So we’ve got peace, grounded, harmony, joy, love, and then we move from love to neutrality, then neutrality to confusion, confusion to hopelessness, hopelessness to doubt, and so on.
As you are moving the thermometer it gets more and more red because you’re getting more and more heated. That’s a way to gauge where you are at. Where am I on the thermometer today? [a]
When you are in exchange with your child and they are not doing what you want them to do, what’s going on in that scale of the thermometer? Are you staying in this cool zone or are you getting more and more heated?
If you are about to blow your top off, you have to recognize this. Notice that, and then take a moment for yourself. If you don’t take that moment for yourself you’re just going to cause more harm to your loved ones than if you didn’t. Take a moment and then you come back.
Alisha Leytem: Using that visual helps a ton of being able to gauge those emotions. Sometimes in my experience people are living most of their lives living from the top of that thermometer. That’s just normal and common that they don’t even realize that they are “up” there.
I think that this is a work of self-awareness and mindfulness. I always tell clients that’s when they feel like they aren’t even in their body. They have been working all day and don’t even realize that they have barely even gotten up from their desk.
That is a really helpful awareness and just starting there. With the intention of feeling better, but bringing that work for your child as well.
Rachel Joy: I love how you use the desk example because that is such a real life example. I find that we are just like our children. Children need “transition time”, they need to know what’s next and they need that time in between to go from one task to the other. So that they can regulate in between those instances and not overload their systems.
I’ve noticed that if I have been sitting at my desk all day and then come 3 o’clock my husband and I will go pick my son up from school together. Somedays I am back to back on calls and I’m online until 3:30. Then I am running out of here and getting into the car so I can go pick up my son on time.
Those days in the car my husband will be saying something totally unimportant, but because I didn't have my transition time I am reacting to him in a completely different way. If I had set time in my day to regulate my nervous system I would have felt better.
Alisha Leytem: How do you transition yourself after long work days?
Rachel Joy: I will try and finish up all my calls 30 minutes before I actually have to leave the house. That way I can wrap up any loose ends or emails or whatever it might be. Otherwise I will have it running in my mind all night.
I leave a gap for me to wrap up my actual work day. Then most days my husband and I will pick up my son together. Sometimes it's just as small as enjoying the conversation with each other on our way to get him. If we have enough time we will grab a coffee on the way as well.
Alisha Leytem: I think the self-awareness of knowing you need that time from the end work and in between picking him up is really powerful. I think that for our listeners at the end of the work day, how can you decide or choose a transitional regulating ritual? That you can anchor into before you go and do the parenting thing for the rest of the night.
I work at home and my daughter and husband are in the house too. Sometimes she knows she can just walk in. So, when my work day is kind of wrapping up she’ll know that mommy’s finished up and it’s time to go down and knock on the door. I try to make sure and get done a little bit beforehand.
Some of my favorite things to do are go and ground outside. I will go outside and literally just touch the earth. It takes 30 seconds to regulate through that. If I have given myself enough time to meditate, I’ll clear it out. Or I will journal down a few things. Like 3 great things that happened at work today. Then I can just shut it down, take a breath, and go into it.
I noticed that there are many times where I don’t do it. Then I go straight into finishing my day with my family and I can get very overwhelmed. Those things happen. It’s life. When we are aware of how often those things happen, how can we minimize them and not make them the norm essentially?
Rachel Joy: It’s just consistent practice. The more you practice this the more you end up embodying that. The subconscious mind loves repetition. The more we practice something the more we master those things. At the very beginning it might be a little bit of will power. It might be to do your mid-day regulation practice. Eventually you will become that person.
If you are like me you want the faster and easier route and will-power your way there. Plus super charge it with hypnotherapy and other subconscious techniques that will help you step into that identity a lot easier?
Alisha Leytem: Can you tell us a little bit about that? I know you have done a lot with NLP.
Rachel Joy: One of my regulation tools is putting on a hypnosis track. I absolutely love hypnotherapy for success and sleep as well. Essentially NLP, Neuro-Linguistic Programming, is a very powerful modality for subconscious reprogramming. Your subconscious is responsible for 99% of all thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.
When you think about that we are running on autopilot almost all day, everyday. We are going to repeat the same patterns, behaviors, and thought processes based upon the values that we have adopted in our life. Unless you intentionally decide to want new patterns or behaviors. You can use tools like hypnotherapy that works on the subconscious level to support you in stepping into that change.
All hypnotherapy is what we call trance. We get you into this state of trance, which is a really relaxed state. You are still coherent and fully in control. We say all hypnosis is self-hypnosis. When you're in that state your critical faculty comes down. Your critical faculty is like the gatekeeper of your subconscious who decides who's let in and who's not.
Oftentimes when we are awake, alert, and conscious, not in that trance, our guard is up. You want to believe that you are so incredibly worthy, but deep down you don’t because of prior experiences. If you were in a relaxed state where the subconscious is not active and susceptible to new things, then you're more welcoming.
Alisha Leytem: When is the best time to listen to a hypno-track? Is it right before bed?
Rachel Joy: Either first thing in the morning or right before bed. Whatever works for you. I always tell my clients to just get it done. It doesn’t matter what time of the day when you are first starting, if you get it done that’s all that matters.
Right before you go to bed and right before you start your day is when your subconscious is most malleable. It hasn’t woken up to social media and the day to day stresses we’ve been talking about in this entire episode.
Alisha Leytem: Where can people find a track? If they want to start listening to one, how can they get started?
Rachel Joy: I have a few on my website that are recorded. My most popular ones are my money + mindset bundles and I also have one called “confident coach” hypnosis bundle. That one is most relevant for my audience since I specialize in coaching. I do have other ones like “stepping into your high-vibe day” or “manifesting your dreams.” You can find them all on my website!
Alisha Leytem: We will put those links in those show notes because I think some people would be interested in listening.
Rachel Joy: We actually have a parenting hypnosis bundle coming out soon that I am working on right now. That’s the one you should be getting.
Alisha Leytem: I want to shift into a round of questions to get to know you a little bit more. What is the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?
Rachel Joy: This the one I always go to and it’s more inspirational than it is advice. It is “transformation is in the ‘yes.” It has become the mantra for my business. The minute you say yes to whatever it is even if you are absolutely terrified of what it might take. The minute that you receive that desire, you step into that level of identity of who you need to become in order to get that thing. Automatically by saying “yes” it initiates that process of getting that thing that you deeply desire.
Alisha Leytem: What’s the most important mistake you’ve made in your life and what did you learn from it?
Rachel Joy: I don’t know if this is a mistake, but more of a pattern of mine. That is that I used to be such an anxious person that I would be afraid of everyone and everything. When I started my healing journey and diving more into the coaching world I witnessed that. I relied on certainty way too much and I realized I need to rely on uncertainty and variety more.
I actually have become high-risk adverse. I will take the risks. I will put myself into really risky business situations and really risky financial positions that most people logically would not take. While many of those investments have hurt me I have learned from every single one.
The situations I put myself in will literally bring me to my knees so that I have no choice, but to literally rise and rebirth myself again. Everytime that I do that I become this next level of myself. The mistake is that I take really big risks that fall, but I have also cultivated a lot of resiliency and resourcefulness through those.
Alisha Leytem: So how do you continue to allow yourself to take big risks even if you feel like you’ve fallen so often? How can you step into that resilience of “alright let’s do it again?”
Rachel Joy: That’s become harder as well because now that I am a mom there is more on the line. Sometimes I feel like I cannot afford to risk it in the way that I used to. It’s really just this soul calling and my intuition is just telling me I need to do this, no matter how afraid you are.
I always ask myself “what's the worst case scenario and am I willing to live with that result if that’s the case?” Is that something I can truly handle and come back from? The answer is usually always “yes.”
I don’t know if that’s just a part of my identity and who I am, but I have already cultivated so much resilience through my life, but I always just recognize the end result even if it is not ideal. Then I tell myself “let’s go.”
Alisha Leytem: I think that’s really important to ask yourself the worst case scenario because when you voice it and you label it then you realize it's usually not that bad. Or it’s already your current reality. So if the worst case scenario is what you’re currently doing, then is it the worst case scenario?
I can relate to that because that is how I have made a lot of decisions in my life. Especially the big decisions. Resilience is a really hot topic that we talk about and in general. Especially the people in the workforce who are trying to rise above these past few years and handle the trauma, uncertainty, and anxieties of the past few years. How would you embrace being resilient from everything we’ve all experienced collectively, since 2020?
Rachel Joy: Embracing your resilience starts with regulating your nervous system. You can accept it or you can find it. In either reaction you’re either fighting it, you’re definitely more dysregulated, more pain, less harmony, and less freedom in your life.
If you accept it your reality does not necessarily change, but you open up space for more opportunities for solutions that can arise. When you are practicing regular nervous system regulation you can then witness those solutions that are coming your way.
Then you can know that’s the next thing I need to do. Or you know what, I am not happy in my circumstance. I feel a little bit on wobbly ground, but I can handle this because I am not in a heightened state of activation where I am not thinking clearly or I’m not feeling the way I want to feel.
Alisha Leytem: I think we all have frazzled nervous systems after the last few years. So we all have to continue to work extra hard, especially regulating our day to day right now.
Rachel Joy: That’s a global conversation I am noticing that’s happening. Nervous system regulation is just a hot topic recently because it’s exactly what you just said.
Alisha Leytem: I think people are just more open to it than they were previously. They are more susceptive to listening and doing things.
Rachel Joy: People are like “I don’t know what that thing is, but if there is a result I will keep doing it.”
Alisha Leytem: Corporate is open to this now. Whereas before if you said nervous system you were going to lose people, but now they realize they need to manage their stress and prevent or overcome burnout. Then they ask “what do I need to do?” That’s where we come in and teach them how to regulate and relax on purpose.
Next question, what’s the first thing that you do in the morning that helps you improve your quality of life?
Rachel Joy: First thing at night is my hypnosis. That is more consistent than my morning routine lately because my morning routine usually gets interrupted by my son. In the morning I will also go to the gym after school drop off. My morning routine is going to the gym and meditating, then in the afternoon it’s hypnosis.
Alisha Leytem: What hypnotherapy are you doing right now?
Rachel Joy: I will change depending on what my mood is. So the past few ones have been sleeping because I have not been getting much sleep. Or a money + mindset abundance type of hypnotherapy track.
Alisha Leytem: Last question, if you could recommend one book for our listeners, what would it be?
Rachel Joy: “The 7 Spiritual Laws of Success” by Deepak Chopra. It’s so small, but so fast and easy. It really opened up my mind to what success looks like and how easy it can be to be successful. When I was first starting my business it was one of those books that just stuck with me.
Alisha Leytem: What’s your favorite law from it?
Rachel Joy: I would choose all of them really! The one that comes to mind right now is the Law of Dharma because I really think I am living my purpose right now.
Alisha Leytem: The one that’s coming to me right now is the Law of Detachment.
Rachel Joy: That’s the one that I usually love! This is why I think some of my manifestations aren’t happening because I am so attached to the outcome.
Alisha Leytem: You guys should totally check out that book because it is such a powerful read by Deepak Chopra. He’s going to drop some truths on what success is and how you can achieve it through the 7 spiritual laws.
So tell us more about when we can expect information on your transformational parenting course. Tell us about where we can connect with you and all the things.
Rachel Joy: If you would love to join me in taking a parent eccentric approach to parenting and really connecting deeper with yourself and your inner child and the formative years of your life and how they shaped who you are today. Plsu how that will continue to shape the future generations and the legacy you create for your family. Transformational parenting is the place for you to be. It is a 12 week group coaching program. I just feel like parents need to connect with other parents. That's why I decided to put it in a group format.
That’s out on my website. Then other links and places and happenings. One thing you can do is just slide into my DM’s and start a chat. I want to know how this conversation with Alisha and I is impacting you. You can reach me on instagram @official.houseofjoy then on LinkedIn I am The Rachel Joy.
Alisha Leytem: We will have all those links below, for everyone to check out. Thank you so much for being on here today and doing this really important work that we need. Plus leading by example. I am really proud of you.
Rachel Joy: Thank you!
Alisha Leytem: Alright guys, be sure to subscribe and we will see you at the next episode. We have a new one every Friday morning for y’all. See you next time. Bye!
[a]might be a fun graphic to make? idk