Hello everyone. Welcome to Your SuperPowered Mind. I’m your host Kristin Maxwell, and in this show we explore the process of transformation, and give you tools and strategies that you can use to transform your own life.
Today, we are going to be talking to Laura Di Franco about getting past your inner critic and into action. Through her Maryland-based Brave Healer productions, Laura Di Franco offers inspiring speeches, workshops, a writing club, and other services that help talented health professionals tell their stories so they can maximize the professional impact. With almost three decades of expertise in holistic physical therapy, Laura also writes with publications, with articles and publications like Huffington Post, and mindbodygreen. As a third-degree black belt in Taekwondo, and with a hobby in drag racing, Laura knows bravery. She’s written eight books with her eighth book titled ‘Brave Healing: A Guide for Your Journey.” Laura, welcome to Your SuperPowered Mind.
Thank you. Love this topic. I’ve been looking forward to the conversation.
I’m so excited to hear what you’re going to share, because I know all of us out here could use some help in the areas that you work. My first question is always: what superpower did you discover as the result of mastering your mind?
I love this question. I actually thought about this after I listened to a few of your episodes. I just think that mastering your mindset is a superpower in and of itself. I think that my tweak on it is that I figured out how to use that to go for the joy in my life in all aspects unapologetically. And mastering my mindset was an absolute must to be able to do that, because there are so many messages that get in the way. The inner critic voices in my head have been relentless. Who are you to do that? Following the rules, following what everybody else has to say about everything … I checked off a lot of things in my life that I was supposed to do to make me happy, and sat there after that whole list was checked off wondering why I wasn’t. And I realized it was because I hadn’t gone for the things that truly made me feel joyful. That process is a mindset process.
Wow. Okay. You’ve just said a ton right there.
It’s a hefty topic, right? For me, it’s a combo of body awareness of actually sensing what’s going on in your world, and mind-thought awareness. It’s both things all the time.
Yes. I totally agree. I would even add that’s the spiritual sense, too.
Yes.
Yes. It’s this … you can’t just go at it at one level. It’s what’s going on in your body, what’s going on in your mind, and then what’s going on with your soul sort of to wrap it all up. So, let me start with what I love is your thing that mastering your mindset is a superpower in and of itself. That is so true.
Yes. I mean, it’s the foundation for healing. It’s the foundation for living a life that you absolutely love and kick ass in. It’s really the foundation, and it’s also a practice and a life-long journey. Mastering is maybe the wrong word, because I think that you always need to be in a learner’s mindset until you die.
Right.
Yeah. So, we master it in the moments of our day, and I feel really good when I’m doing that.
That’s beautiful. Let’s say … because some of the listeners of ours are in business and some are not. But we all have issues with our mindset, and inner critics, and all of that stuff going on. Let’s say you’ve got somebody that you’re working with, and they are just stuck in their head.
That’s familiar.
You could go maybe thousands of ways.
Yes.
How do you go about helping them to start being aware of what it is that they’re saying, and stopping that? What’s your first step, would you say?
Well, I had a coach say to me one time, “You better smell the smoke before your house burns down.” What she meant by that is you do really have to start to feel into what’s happening inside of you. Unfortunately, a lot of people aren’t being aware of those things until they have chest pain. You know what I mean? The body is screaming at them. They have to start to pay attention, because they’re forced into their body.
I think what I would say as a first step is just connect with your breath more often. It really can be that easy. Clear your mind, feel your breathing. Clear your mind, feel your breathing. Everyone has to start somewhere with some form of … I hate to use the m-word, meditation, because people think I mean to go sit on a pillow for an hour and chant. You know? But it doesn’t have to be that complicated or lengthy. It can just be about being mindful in the moment with what you are sensing. You’re right. We do have to have reminders in the beginning, because the habitual pattern is to be in our head all day long. Problem solving, analyzing, fixing. And your poor body is, like, you’re cut off from the neck down. You don’t even feel what’s going on sometimes until your body starts to scream.
Yes. Yes. And it’s funny, I recently interviewed Dr. Stephen Hall, and he was talking so much about how getting to know your beliefs will help to heal your body, forming beliefs. It was fascinating how much it does relate to our physiology. Inner Critic
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Definitely. And I think we know this, right? Where we see there’s some research, we read a lot of things. We kind of know that everything is connected, we know this is a mind-body system that is fully connected, and that we should be integrating all of these things. And yet the practice itself is hard sometimes, especially if you’ve spent a lifetime doing one thing. I know probably a lot of you, like me, grew up to taught not to feel. “Oh, get up, you’re fine.” Stuff like that. And just not to feel in general … in both ends of the spectrum by the way, not to feel the pain, but also not to feel the ecstatic joy. Because then you are being too much.
So, we were all squeezed into this little box where we were thinking too much about whether or not we were at one end of the spectrum or the other, kind of cutting ourselves off from the body altogether. We have to remember every single emotion has a physiological energetic effect inside of you. That’s the science. And they’re starting to write about this and research it. Man, I’m excited about reading some of that lately.
Yeah, isn’t it great? Every one of the first things I do with all of my clients is to start to teach them how to tune into the emotion, the sensations in their body as a result of the emotions that they’re feeling.
Yes.
I do love it, because it also gives them practice in getting out of their head instead of the feeling. Okay. We have a way more to talk about, but we do need to take a quick break. Where can people learn about you and what your work is?
Thank you. Come on over to bravehealer.com, and I’ve got all sorts of things for you guys to look at over there.
Great. Hang on. When we come back, we will be talking a little bit more about getting through that inner critic.
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