Lorayne Michaels' Guide to Aligning Mind, Body, and Spirit for Growth

Embark on a transformative journey with me, Lorayne Michaels, as we unlock the secrets of personal empowerment and growth. If you've ever felt stuck or unsure about how to move past life's hurdles, this episode of the Bite Size podcast is your blueprint for change, offering a wealth of insights and practical strategies. We begin by dissecting the mind pillar of my unique empowerment and transformation framework. Prepare to be guided through the decisive steps of Decide, Change, Discover, and Grow, as I share the keys to making pivotal life decisions, altering destructive habits, and unearthing the dreams that fuel your passion. This is not just about reaching your goals but also about flourishing into the person you were always destined to become.

Feel the power of reprogramming your subconscious mind with the practice of gratitude, embracing life's unpredictability with a positive outlook, and harnessing the art of visualization to draw success closer. I weave in personal anecdotes and actionable advice to help you craft a life of purpose, seamlessly integrating mind, body, and spirit. The episode culminates with an invigorating message for live events, where I'm thrilled to connect and share strategies for overcoming life's challenges. Every step, from the solitary moments of reflection to the communal experiences of growth, are designed to support and motivate you to live a life that resonates deeply with your true self. So tune in, and let's start this life-altering expedition together.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

Welcome to the Bite Size podcast. I'm your host, lorraine Michaels, former EMT and nursing assistant, now business owner and wild entrepreneur. I walked away from over 15 years in medicine to pursue my passion and my God-given talents. Now I get the honor of helping other women discover their passions and purpose. If you're feeling stuck in life, unsure where to go or what to do, welcome. If you're exactly where you want to be great, you're welcome here too. If you have faced any kind of hardship or setback, you have found a safe place here. In other words, no matter who you are or what you've been through or what you're going through, this is the space for you. On the Bite Size podcast, we'll discuss life, business and faith. There's something for everyone. So grab a cup of coffee and something to take notes with, because there will definitely be things you won't want to forget. Welcome back to the Bite Size podcast. I'm your host, lorraine Michaels, and today is a solo episode and I'm so excited to talk to you about my framework. So I'm going to talk to you today about what I talk about on stage when I talk about my framework and how I incorporate the three main pillars of mind, body and spirit, and I briefly touched on it a couple of weeks ago, a week or so ago and I did a live training and it was like a live coaching session and it was probably for about 30 minutes or so, maybe, if that I don't remember. But anyways, I really wanted to dive into it a little bit deeper today so that you can understand a little bit about my framework, but also to give you some tools to help you for free. I mean, that's what I do on my podcast. Is I bring value? I bring people on my podcast that provide value in different areas of life, whether it be faith, business, life, fitness, health, whatever it may be. I always try and showcase other people and their gifts, talents and abilities, as well as their story, because I love telling people's stories. So I apologize in advance if you hear some moving around. I'm trying to hold the microphone because I like the way it sounds better and so you guys can hear me better, and also being further back, because when you view the podcast or when I post videos, I don't like how close it is. I like it when it was farther away. So I'm trying some new things. So bear with me. I love you and I appreciate your grace.

Speaker 1: 3:04

So today I want to dive into the mind pillar of my framework, so just to kind of over an overview of it. There's three main pillars that I talk about mind, body, spirit. And this whole premise of those three pillars is a phase that you embody when you're walking through this, if I'm coaching you or if you come to an event and I'm speaking out and I go through this. This phase is empowerment and transformation, and that's what I'm teaching you. I'm helping you walk through a season in life where I am giving you the tools to help empower you and transform your life to what you are wanting it to be. And so there's three steps, four steps, I'm sorry Decide, change, discover and grow. And essentially those are the transformative steps that you are taking. You're going to decide, you're going to change, you're going to discover and you're going to grow, and I can kind of briefly overview that what that is. So first, you're going to make a decision right, and it's going to start with you making a decision that you want to change. You making a decision that where you're at financially, where you're at relationally, where you're at spiritually, where you're at in your fitness journey, whatever it may be, you're making a decision that something needs to change. You need to do something about it. And then that's going to start with you healing healing from trauma, healing from some bad stuff that's happened in your life. We have all been through some bad stuff and some of us have not dealt with it. Some of us are stuffing it. Some of us are dealing with it in an unhealthy way. We're coping with it in an unhealthy way, whether that be with drinking. That's what I did. I masked everything that I went through was going through with alcohol and I escaped through alcohol and I used alcohol inappropriately and it costed me a lot of peace. It costed me a lot of friendships. I hurt a lot of people and hurt myself in the process.

Speaker 1: 5:31

And then the change step You're going to change your habits. You're going to change your lifestyle. We're going to walk through all of that. What does that look like? What are your current habits? What can we do to improve them? What's your lifestyle? What can we do to improve them so that you can get to where you are wanting to be in said area and then discover we're going to discover your dreams. We're going to dream again. We're going to figure out what it is that brings you joy, that lights you up, the stuff that you used to do and don't do anymore you dreamt about doing but never did because of fear or whatever the case may be. We'll go down that path together and I'll help you discover that and then grow, and I walk you through how to grow, how to walk in your truest self, and that's through education, whether that's going back to school, whether that's reading books, listening to podcasts, but educating yourself. If it's a matter of stepping into a new career, what does that look like? Is it again going back to school and then surrounding yourself with the right community and getting around the right people that are going to help you and encourage you and are on the path of growth?

Speaker 1: 6:54

And then we're going to this is my favorite part reprogram your subconscious mind. This is where the rubber meets the road. This is where the real huge changes you start to see. Momentum is reprogramming your subconscious mind. That falls under the mind category, and so that's really what I wanted to focus on today was the mind category. So I want to dive a little bit deeper into that and what that looks like, and I'm going to make this bigger Perfect.

Speaker 1: 7:34

So the mind category, it's going to start with a mindset shift and that starts with your first decision. Right, you're going to make a decision. You have to have a mindset shift. We're going to focus on a growth mindset instead of a fixed mindset. We're going to really learn what that means a growth mindset versus fixed mindset and how to embody that, how to start changing our thought patterns, how to start changing our the way we view things. So and I briefly touched on that also during the live coaching call was what is a fixed mindset and what is a growth mindset? And that's you know.

Speaker 1: 8:21

How do you face adversity? How do you face challenges? Do you embrace it? Do you avoid it? Do you view other people's success? Does it inspire you? Does it intimidate you? Do you feel threatened by it? Another thing is with change how do you view change? Do you avoid it and resist it, or do you embrace it? Do you learn from it, or is it a negative thing to you? So all these things, I'm giving you examples of a fixed mindset versus a growth mindset. Another aspect of the mind pillar is discovering your gifts and talents. That I love walking clients through a series of questions, really discovery questions.

Speaker 1: 9:15

I think I have some of these prompts in my 30 day journal as well. If you are unaware, I have three journals available on Amazon. One of them is just a lined journal that has nothing in it. It's just a cute little journal that you can take notes in and it says notes on it. Another one is another mindset journal that I created and there's two sections on each page where I ask you a question. It's the same question every day what am I grateful for? And what was the other one, what can I learn from today? Or what did I learn from today? There's two questions that you ask yourself every day and you just journal and I give you a lot of freedom and you can write about whatever you want to write about, but I give you two prompts, same every day. And then the third is the 30 day journal with prompts and that has a habit tracker.

Speaker 1: 10:13

That one is ideal for someone who is really wanting to grow and expand in the four main areas of their life, which is spirituality, entrepreneurship or business, lifestyle, fitness, health and wellness and relationally. So personally, relationally, business, and health and wellness and spiritual. I really encourage you to get that journal. It is amazing. It's got some phenomenal prompts in it. There's 30 different prompts, there's scripture in it and there's quotes in it. It's an awesome journal if you really want to advance and grow in your life and so discovering your gifts and talents.

Speaker 1: 11:04

There's a couple of questions in there that help you along that frame of discovering what are you good at, what brings you joy, what do you do innately? What is something that comes easy to you? What when you're in your flow state and you're just rocking and rolling, not interrupted, and all of a sudden you look up and it's like, oh my gosh, it's been like four or five hours and I didn't even realize it. Where's the time gone? Because you're in your flow state, you're doing what you love, whatever that may be writing, drawing, coloring, editing, creating content, teaching, photography, whatever it may be your talent, what are you good at? Another question I like to ask my clients is what is something that people come to you for advice for? Is it relationships, is it wealth? Is it finances? Is it fitness? I keep going back to photography. I don't know. Maybe there's a photographer listening to this podcast today. If so, this is for you. Reach out to me. There's a reason why you're hearing this no, I'm just kidding, but no, really.

Speaker 1: 12:24

And then educating I briefly talked about this when I was going over the whole framework. So education, reading this is all part of the mind pillar that I talk about. So educating yourself on that topic, on that talent, but continuing to learn and grow In whatever field, that is that you are trying to get better at. What else? On healing, educating yourself on healing, on health. And then I talked about the community Making sure that you are surrounding yourself with the right community, with the right people, the people that are going to help you and encourage you and hold you accountable in your journey. Hold you accountable in what it is that you're doing, what you're trying to do right, finding the, getting to those events. I always talk about getting to live events.

Speaker 1: 13:31

If you're in business and you're listening to this, or even even I want to encourage you if you are a W2 employee, if you work a job you don't have a business but you work a job Getting to conferences. For that. Are you trying to advance in your career? Are you trying to grow in your career? Then I want to encourage you to get into leadership, get, find leadership conferences. John Maxwell is amazing. I am certified through the John Maxwell leadership team. So I do lunch and learns I do. I can come to businesses and help teach on leadership. So getting into those types of environments where you are in a community of people that are learning and growing.

Speaker 1: 14:21

If you are a stay at home mom, sourdough bread is like a huge thing right now. I do it too, but I am getting in. I've found myself getting into like Facebook groups of said thing. So that's getting into the right community, right? I want to learn more about how to make sourdough bread and all things sourdough. So I'm surrounding myself with people that are doing it too, that are learning and growing and teaching one another. So this is what I mean about surrounding yourself with the right people. I'm not going to surround myself with a group of people that are negative, who are partying and drinking and doing drugs and not doing well for themselves Not talking bad about those people, because I was that person once before but they're not doing anything that is positive and anything that's healthy and anything that's serving other people. Right, it's not good, it's negative. So, surrounding yourself with the right community, the right people who are going to help you and inspire you and encourage you. Maybe that's getting a coach, maybe that's working with someone that's going to help you one on one.

Speaker 1: 15:35

Find that Maybe you're in transition right now and you're trying to leave a certain season of life and you're trying to get into a higher you know, step into your higher self, your best self. And this transition, friend, is lonely. I know, I was once there and it stinks, but I want to encourage you to keep going, because you are called to do what you were created to do and that life that you were living of drinking and partying is not serving you. It's not. You need to leave it. So, anyways.

Speaker 1: 16:16

And then reprogramming your subconscious mind. That, like I said, is my favorite part of all. There's five steps that I kind of coach you through on reprogramming your subconscious mind. There's what I used and I love. And, mind you, this is not therapy. This doesn't take the place of therapy. If you need therapy, then by all means go to it. I highly suggest it. I've been in it many times, many years. It's helped me immensely. So this is not that.

Speaker 1: 16:57

So, step one by by, neural beats. So it is music that goes from one ear to the other and it is incredibly powerful. There's different frequencies, there's different beats. Find what works for you. I downloaded this album I cannot remember the name of it, maybe I can look it up while we are doing this and it was amazing. Some songs work, some songs don't. You have to figure out what works for you. So just going to, you can go to YouTube and you can search by I don't even know if I'm pronouncing it right by neural beats. By neural beats you can do for sleep, for focus. I just do by neural beats. And there is an album it's by a doctor. Oh man, I wish I could find it. Of course I won't when I need it. Just be careful, because I don't subscribe to some people do if you do, that's not me Like chakras and meditation and all that stuff. I don't subscribe to that and I try and stay clear of that because it's not biblical. But anyways, binaural beats. It's by a doctor and I can't remember his name at this point, but it is amazing and it really unlocks like just different healing modalities and it has helped with trauma. It's helped for me personally. It's helped break through certain roadblocks that I've had with healing and so, and that has helped me in this journey.

Speaker 1: 18:59

Also, for the five steps of reprogram your subconscious mind. Step two gratitude. So always being in a state of gratitude, always framing things in a state of gratitude, because you cannot be healthy and you cannot be healing if you're not in a state of gratitude. If you're not, it's just, it's again, it's that positive mindset shift. If you're always living in a state of anguish and anger and sadness and turmoil and resentment, you are not going to heal, you are not going to reach your highest self, your highest, best, truest self. You're not going to. And the greatest emotion of all, with the greatest power and the greatest frequency, the greatest vibration, is love, and love and gratitude, like they go hand in hand. So, embracing that state of gratitude.

Speaker 1: 20:00

And you might be saying, maureen, you have no idea what I'm going through. You have no idea what I've been through. You don't know how crappy my life is right now. You are absolutely right, I don't. But I was there too. Trust me, I have had you wouldn't believe the crud that I have been through. A lot of it was to my own demise. I put myself there because of the choices that I made. So you might be having a hard time being grateful for anything or being able to see the silver lining.

Speaker 1: 20:36

Start small, start with the obvious. I'm grateful for having clothes. I'm grateful for having a job. You might hate your job, but you have a job. It's paying the bills. I'm grateful for having a vehicle. You know, think of the simplest things that you have that some people don't. You know, if it is a job and you hate your job, some people that don't have a job would kill to have your job, even though you hate it. I don't like mine right now, but it's not the end, all be all. I'm there for a transition. I'm there for a season. I know I'm not going to be there forever. I know you know this coaching, speaking, traveling, all of that is going. That's where it's at Right now. This is a transition. I'm helping out. I'm trying. You know there's a reason for it, but I'm grateful for it. I'm grateful for the connections that I've made. I'm grateful for the lives that I have changed, the people that I have helped. I'm grateful for that. I'm grateful for the people that I've met and have become friends with. So it's just, it's all in how you frame it and that's that's what takes practice. That's what takes the time and the effort and changing the lifestyle and the habits, of getting into a state of gratitude and being grateful for what you have.

Speaker 1: 22:02

Step three embracing uncertainty. This one has to do with mindset. That's why it's under the mindset, the mind pillar, embracing uncertainty. So when you adopt, the mindset of this could be good, the uncertainty instead of fear of the unknown, or fear of the uncertain or resisting the uncertainty of it, the unknown, embrace it. What? Be excited about it? Ask yourself questions like what can I learn from this? What is this going to teach me? What can I get from this? What? What does God have for me in this? So, just embracing the uncertainty with an excited eagerness, willingness, all of those positive emotions, and I guarantee you, friend, you will see the gold in it, you'll see the silver lining, you'll see the positive in it, you'll see those things that you are grateful for.

Speaker 1: 23:09

And then the right environment. I talked about that. That's like the community aspect of it, or surrounding yourself with the right people, getting in the right environment, going to live events, getting around people that are doing what you want to do and that are going places, and then visualize. This one is huge, this one, if you sometimes okay, it might be a little bit woo-woo, and in the beginning it was for me too, until I was there. So I'm going to tell you something.

Speaker 1: 23:46

One of my dreams, one of my goals, one of my big, hairy, audacious goals my be hags is to speak at the Georgia Dome, which is an event center in Atlanta, georgia. It's the BMW, bmw, or is it the Mercedes, the Mercedes Center or the BMW? Maybe it's the Mercedes, I don't know. I can't remember Now that I'm on the spot, now this is recorded. But anyways, visualize, visualize it.

Speaker 1: 24:24

So I never knew that's what I wanted to do. I never thought that I wanted to speak, teach train coach. I did not think that I would ever do this until I was put in an environment and I was put in the place. And I wasn't on that stage, but I was in the stadium. I saw the coaches, the speakers, the trainers. I saw them up on stage and their name in the lights and all the people that were there. I was up in the very, very, very tip top, top place of the arena. On purpose, I took myself up there so that I could see a bird's eye view of it, so I could see everyone, and I could see the floor and I could see the stage and it was amazing. It was freaking amazing. I got so excited, I started crying. It was powerful, powerful.

Speaker 1: 25:23

I was on the floor at one point at this convention. I was right up to the stage. So I was there and I got to experience it and from that moment on I could visualize myself up on that stage. I'm going to tell you this I will be on that stage one day. I don't know how or when, but I know I will, because God dropped that in me. God dropped that in my spirit and showed me you will be here. I have no idea how or when. I was like uh-uh, you're crazy. That's not what I want to do. Are you kidding me? That's just, I don't even know how, I don't know what I would talk about. I don't even know, but God keeps pointing me to that, god keeps bringing me back to that genesis.

Speaker 1: 26:19

And you have to visualize. It helps you. It helps you get into that mindset, it helps you get into the feeling, it helps you embody it. So, whatever it is that you are trying to achieve, visualize yourself doing it Winning that race, getting that promotion, buying that house, getting that car, getting into a size, whatever. Whatever that is, that goal, that dream, whatever it is.

Speaker 1: 26:54

Visualize yourself doing it, feel what it feels like to do it, to accomplish it, to get it. And you've got to hold on to that emotion. You have to hold on to that feeling, remember what it feels like to accomplish it, to do it, to get it. And each time that you get down or discouraged or you don't want to do it, you don't have the motivation, I want you to pull that feeling and I want you to remember what it felt like when you did it and that's going to give you the grit to keep going, that's going to give you the umph, the gumption to get up and do it again, to try again. That extra rep, that extra round, that extra whatever it is, do it, embody it, walk in it, because God didn't give you that feeling, that desire, that gifting for you to waste it. And I know sometimes it gets mucky and cloudy and you don't know where to go, what step to take next. But, friend, it's in you, it is in you and if you don't know the steps, that's what I'm here for.

Speaker 1: 28:21

I would love to help you through this. I would love to help guide you through this. Reach out to me. You can email me, you can message me on Instagram, facebook I'm hardly on Facebook, but you message me, I will get it. But reach out to me. Go to my website. There's plenty of ways to contact me, lorraine. At theboldbeginningscom. My website is theboldbeginningscom. You can send me a message there. You can find me on Instagram, lorraine underscore Michaels. There's plenty of ways that you can find me, but I would love to walk you through this.

Speaker 1: 28:59

If this is something that excites you but terrifies you at the same time, reach out to me. I would love to help you because, let me tell you, and I'll end with this, you are divinely created for a divine purpose. No one can do it like you, and there's a reason for you. Your past doesn't define you. In fact, those are the things that actually qualify you to do what you are desiring to do, and you have it in you. You have the gifting in you. It's just a matter of us working together and pulling it out, pulling it out of you and me helping guide you and encourage you and push you on to what you were created to do.

Speaker 1: 29:48

So, friends, thank you so much for hanging out with me today on this solo episode, and we talked about the mind aspect of my framework and if this episode has helped you at all or you know someone that would benefit from hearing it, please share it and tag me. Repost it, tag me, let me know that you're listening to it. I'd love to shout you out, connect with you, say hello and get some feedback. As always, friend, I hope you have a fantastic day and we will see you on the next episode of the Bite Size Podcast. Hey, it's Lorraine.

Speaker 1: 30:28

As you know, it's my joy and passion to teach and encourage others through this podcast, but my heart is actually at live events. Currently, I'm available for booking, so if you're organizing a live event, I'd love to share my story. Your audience will walk away with tangible tools on how to overcome limiting beliefs, break down obstacles and discover their gifts, talents and abilities in order to live a life that God created them to live. It's not the size of the audience that's important. It's the connection and impact that I will bring. For more information, email me at Lorraine at theboldbeginningscom.