S4:E2: Unlocking Personal Growth: You Are The Boundary (with Alison Guydan)

Welcome to an enriching discussion with Alison - a powerhouse in the realm of life, dating, and relationship coaching. We spent the episode dissecting her unique approach, where she incorporates her psychology and educational therapy background to create personalized strategies for her clients. As we explored her journey, it became evident how crucial her tailored coaching techniques are in propelling individuals towards a future filled with transformation and growth.

We also dedicated some time in our conversation to delve into self-care and mindset, two elements that often get overlooked but are key to personal transformation. Alison helped us understand why self-love should be a priority and how creating routines that respect personal boundaries can make a world of difference. The conversation made clear that self-reflection can be a powerful tool in understanding our daily lives and how a shift in mindset can change how we view our struggles. Tune in, and let's take a step together towards embracing growth and self-compassion on this incredible journey of transformation.

More About Ali: Alison is a life, dating, and relationship coach who helps people overcome blocks and achieve their relationship, dating, and personal goals. She focuses on helping her clients create healthy, fulfilling relationships while teaching them the skills they need to navigate the dating world. Alison provides guidance, support, and advice to her clients in areas such as healthy communication, boundaries, self-esteem, emotional intelligence, and personal growth. She also helps her clients identify their individual needs and goals, and create plans and strategies to reach those goals.

Connect with Ali via: Instagram.

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INSPIRED ACTIONS/THOUGHTS FOR THIS EPISODE:
How can  you use curiosity in your relationships?
What are your personal  values?
How are they in alignment with your relationship goals?
How  do you define self-compassion?
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Transcript

Chantée Christian: 0:04

Hello good people. This is Chantée Christian, and you are listening to the My Best Shift Podcast. In today's episode, Ali and I talk about what we deserve and it being perfectly okay. Hi, Allison, how are you doing today? Hi, I'm good. How are you doing? I'm doing well. I'm so excited to have you join me on the podcast today. But before we get to Tuzu in the weeds, why don't you tell the people a little bit about yourself?

Ali Guydan: 0:59

Yes. So first of all, I'm so happy to be here. It's actually the first podcast I've done. I feel like I kind of like manifested it a couple of weeks ago because I put it out there, I was like I want to be on one. But to let you know a little bit about me so, born and raised in Southern California, I've only lived outside of Southern California once and that was for college.

Ali Guydan: 1:21

I went to Berkeley for undergrad, which was such a cool experience, and then I came back to Southern California to work, to do grad school and then to start to get into my career. So my career actually started in psychology. I got my undergrad in psych and then my master's in marriage and family therapy and worked as a therapist for a while until I decided it really didn't feel like the right fit. Like always knew that I wanted to help people, but not necessarily in that setting. I really like the idea of helping people in a way that's like future focused. This is where we are, but let's figure out where you want to be. So then I switched gears and did more school to become an educational therapist and now I do educational therapy and then I also do life, dating and relationship coaching. So pulling in a little bit of the psychology background into helping people now, but in a different way. That's a little bit more future focused.

Chantée Christian: 2:17

I love that. It's probably one of the main reasons that I love coaching so much, because, while I love therapy personally and for others, it also typically lacks the forward action, and I love that part about coaching. I love it. I love it 100%.

Ali Guydan: 2:36

Yeah, I think therapy is so helpful and it's such an important tool and thing for people to have. But yeah, there's that part where it's like, okay, but what now is? We can work through past stuff, but then, when we think about the future, we still need tools and support and strategies to propel us in the next version of ourselves and where we want to really see ourselves going.

Chantée Christian: 2:58

Absolutely, absolutely, and it's one of the biggest things that I tell my coaching clients, right, how to differentiate between therapy and coaching. When we're talking about coaching because therapy is typically more focused on past traumas and how to heal you from that perspective Versus in coaching, we're going to acknowledge and validate it and we're going to ask you some questions about how is it serving you now and how is it holding you back from the future that you anticipate or that you say that you want.

Ali Guydan: 3:32

Yeah, because it's still those insightful questions and like getting to the bottom of things, like blocks so much of it in coaching. It's like what's blocking you from getting to that next level? But then let's work on that to get you there.

Chantée Christian: 3:47

Yeah, yeah, I'm so curious. So where did you get your coaching? And you are. I do not know the answer to this. Just FYI, what did you get your coaching search from?

Ali Guydan: 4:00

Um, I've done become a certified coach in your life purpose coach and then also in a mindset coach, and so I've done both of them online and then I'm also. I've done masterminds and things like that for myself as a coach, which I think is so important because if we don't go through that, get training and get firsthand experience, we're never going to be able to fully understand what it's like from the client's perspective. If we haven't done it and if we don't have the proper tools to do that, no, absolutely.

Chantée Christian: 4:32

We can only take our clients as far as we've gone. And so if we haven't done the work, and so I like to call and I don't like the word homework so I say love assignments. So, um, in my love assignments I've done them all Right. I don't give my clients anything that I haven't done already, and most of the time I've either done it with one of my coaches or it was the idea that I had, or talking to a friend, or reading a book. Let me be clear I don't really read books. I listen to books. So listening to a book or coming across an article or something and doing it, but I can't ask them to do it because I don't know what it's going to invoke. In general, until I try it, until I agree wholeheartedly with the notion of being able to put yourself inside your client's shoes, to be able to provide for them and get them where they need to be.

Ali Guydan: 5:23

Definitely yeah, because our background and training is important. But then it's also well, there's also, I feel like, a sense of intuition that comes with coaching too, because you have to have that intuition to tap into what's going on. But then have the tools and strategies but I'm not a big fan of the word homework either, and then same journaling I feel like can be another trigger word of like what do you mean? I have to sit and write. It's like the tools and strategies and things that people can do. But I always like to help find what's aligned to the client, Because for all of us everything is going to be different with what terminology works for us, what tools work for us.

Chantée Christian: 5:58

So it's starting to find that, yeah, blending all of those things together, yeah, so when you think about coaching, what is one of your favorite things about it?

Ali Guydan: 6:12

I love seeing the like aha moments of oh my god, that's what I needed to talk about, that's what I needed to hear. That's the moment of transformation. And then seeing the beginning to the end stages, Because so many times it's like coming into coaching and starting to work with someone. It's at a point of I've tried so many things, nothing's working. I feel frustrated. Then going through the ups and downs and like I care so much about the people that I work with too and I want to see the best for people and celebrate their wins.

Ali Guydan: 6:49

And then to the end of it, of you know, bettering their relationship, bettering themselves, and with dating and relationship coaching, there's always going to be that transformation within yourself too, Not just with the life coaching part of it. So it's seeing that transformation. As I'm saying this, someone come to mind of just like they're beginning to end just really wanting to transform their relationship, but it came to transforming their self worth, their self esteem, what they deserve, their communication and then seeing as we try different things, their partner react differently to them. Their partner start to get more engaged, start to open up more and then at the end of it, oh, they just got married. I'm so happy for them. It's like such a great like success story.

Chantée Christian: 7:38

I love that, and I think the biggest part that I took away from that, though, is that we're 50% of any relationship right If they're, especially if they're two people right. So we're talking about a two person relationship. We're 50% of that, and when we work on our whole 100% of our 50, it changes the dynamic of the relationship, because it's no longer focused on the other person and what they did or didn't do, or did or didn't say, or how, how they made me do XYZ right. It's more so in alignment with huh. It's really not about me, those assumptions I had, those stories that I'm making up with no foundation, and all those things, but when we do the work on us, it changes literally every piece of our lives. I think that's part of the awesome.

Ali Guydan: 8:34

Yes, and it's that part of getting curious. You get curious with yourself, you get curious with your partner, no matter what. I feel like that's a foundational tool to have for yourself, because with our partners we make assumptions. With dates, we make assumptions. They don't like me. You know I did this wrong, whatever it is. You know my partner does this because XYZ. But then if you actually ask them like I'm curious, like let me know, or I noticed this, what was this like for you? And then we also check in with ourselves in our own personal experiences Wow, I had this reaction or this emotion. What is this trying to tell me? What's this trying to show me? Yeah, that curiosity also is like a huge catalyst to transformation, because it gives us information and feedback and with that we have so much that we can do with it to grow and evolve.

Chantée Christian: 9:23

Yeah, I have so many questions in my head because I remember as a child the phrase curiosity killed the cat, and I still don't understand it, because curiosity is one of the biggest forms of clarity. It just brings a space where we're able to ask more questions. Now, the way we ask the questions, it's our thing, right, but the curiosity, and coming from a space of curiosity, always feels genuine too, and so I just I don't know. I love that, so tell me, what got you into dating and relationship coaching?

Ali Guydan: 10:07

I've always had a fascination with relationships, with dating, with attachment styles, with what makes us tick, because I feel like there's so much joy that comes from relationships and it's such a like special part of life that we get experience.

Ali Guydan: 10:26

But then I also see how so many small little things can take a great relationship and then lead it to ending the relationship. So before I went back to school for my masters, I was doing just all kinds of research and reading about relationships, communication styles, what makes us us how to be our best selves, to show up for that. And I have seen, even, you know, in my work as a therapist, just the smallest shifts that can change relationships and really evolve and grow people to have really strong love, compared to if we don't do certain things that can lead to the end of a relationship. So I've always been fascinated by it. So it kind of was like a natural fit to transition into coaching Because even now, like watching that show Love is Blind, I love it. I'm like so fascinated by relationship dynamics and communication styles and like what helps couples get to that endpoint versus what led couples to not get married or to break up. It's just, it's so interesting to me.

Chantée Christian: 11:24

Yeah, oh, it's crazy. You just mentioned Love is Blind, because I literally just finished season three two days ago.

Ali Guydan: 11:32

Oh, wow have you finished it I binge, watched it in a couple of days.

Chantée Christian: 11:38

Okay, so first let me ask you what was your favorite favorite season.

Ali Guydan: 11:41

I can't remember the prior seasons, so I'm gonna have to say this season. I don't remember the last time I watched the show I think season two. I got bored with it and I didn't finish it. I'm pretty sure. It's like this one, I was like oh my gosh, these people, like they were just so engaging and entertaining to watch.

Chantée Christian: 12:01

Yeah, this season was rough for me, and I think it was rough because I feel like you mentioned something earlier about having tools. Mm-hmm, I feel like they don't have the tools that are required to succeed in a general relationship, but specifically one that you have built an intimate relationship with, and when you're isolated, it's gonna be great or not, but there were still no tools in helping them navigate their different communication styles, their different behavioral triggers. I'm pregnant, like there were just things where I was like flag on the plate, no one's gonna step in. Where's the producer? Someone help them? And I know that there wouldn't be someone in the house to help them. However, there are professionals that do this work right, and so I'm like someone help guide them, because I think that some of them may have made different decisions had they been able to really work through just a lot of the internal monologue that they were having.

Ali Guydan: 13:07

Yes, definitely A lot of thinking of empathy for the other person, validation for their feelings, regardless of if they agree with their feelings or not. So many things that I think could who knows, maybe shifted their experience. But I know that those will transform relationships today, because, even if someone's feelings get hurt and you talk about it one time, you can't just say, okay, I'm sorry, we're done with this and close the book. Sometimes it's gonna come up a couple of times. It's a wound that, yeah, the person needs to work through. But also, as a couple, you guys need to feel like, okay, this is safe and we can talk about it and I can get the validation or support that I'm looking for from my partner.

Chantée Christian: 13:48

Yeah, that's good, that's good. So I have a lot of single friends that are out there dating. What would be some dating advice that you would have for single people that are dating in 2023?

Ali Guydan: 14:04

Dating advice. Well, I would say getting clear on your personal values is huge. Knowing your musts, your wants and your non-negotiables, like your deal breakers, are important to have, but also to make sure that they're realistic, because sometimes our musts aren't always musts like I need someone this height, I need someone this size, I need someone that makes this much money. I need all of these things, but I would think what to the core of a person do you want? Because that way, when we get clear on what our values are ourselves, what values we want in someone, our perception shifts.

Ali Guydan: 14:40

When we go on dates, when we go online, when we meet people in person, of what we notice and what we look for and knowing our own emotional triggers and wounds Cause, if we had a relationship in the past or family experience, history, whatever it is where we have emotional traumas from that, things can get triggered and then we can instantly write people off, put our walls up, do different things that maybe that person wouldn't do that, or if you communicated however you're feeling to someone, it could grow to the next level. So it's getting to know yourself and what you want. I think those two are really important.

Chantée Christian: 15:17

Okay, I like that. I like that. So, getting to know yourself and getting to know what it is that you want and don't want.

Ali Guydan: 15:26

Exactly and what's realistic. So having real non-negotiables and real wants, but who the person is at their core, not surface level things that are looks change over time, whatever surface level, superficial stuff that maybe is a desire like that, would be an awesome bonus. But then what kind of person do you want at the core? What lifestyle do you want to share with someone? What values are the most important to you? Those things are the things that matter and that makes successful relationships.

Chantée Christian: 16:00

One of my friends.

Chantée Christian: 16:01

She had been divorced and remarried and one of the things that she told me when I had first started dating like early 30s, maybe even still in my late 20s and she told me to take a piece of paper and fold it into three.

Chantée Christian: 16:16

Then the first column put all the things that I would love to have in my partner and things that would be nice to have, and then non-negotiables. And I realized how shallow I was looking at this list and the older I got, the more I would redo it and redo it and redo it, and redo it, and redo it and redo it. And last year, almost to date, I redid it and that was the stem of how I started on what I call my journey to love. And so it was just being realistic about. Well, when I had someone who looked like all of these things, they didn't treat me the way that I thought that I wanted to be treated, or show up in a way that allowed me to show up, and so I had to get really real with myself about what it looked like to be in a relationship, one with me. And then who did I wanna be in relationship with?

Ali Guydan: 17:19

Yeah.

Chantée Christian: 17:20

I love that.

Ali Guydan: 17:21

It's interesting how, through different phases of life, what we want and seek changes and the more we develop that relationship with ourselves that we also know what I want, what I deserve and what I need. That's that emotionally available person who's really gonna show up and show up for you.

Chantée Christian: 17:42

Yeah, I love that. Okay, so then I have a whole bunch of friends who are in relationships and or married. So what advice do you give them?

Ali Guydan: 17:54

Well, it depends on their situation. But if someone needs to reconnect because I think what happens a lot of the times too, is we get into routines and routines can get boring over time, especially if there's children involved, hectic work schedules, busy lives that come up, things outside the relationship that we can start to put less effort into the relationship. But even if you're married for 10 years, you still need to date the person. So do the little things that show that you care. Check in with each other and say how are you feeling, are your needs, where are your needs at? Talk about the things that are coming up, because that way it's better to be proactive rather than reactive later.

Ali Guydan: 18:38

Then, if we're not talking about things, we're not working through things, we're not growing as a couple. That's totally different and that's what can lead to more stressors in the relationship and then challenges later on. So it's do those little things. It really matters, like doing those little things along the way and still dating the person and still getting to know the person, cause even like you said, your list changed throughout the years. So much of us, as people, change and we have to relearn our partners and re-explore that love through different phases of life.

Chantée Christian: 19:13

Yeah, I like that. I also wonder how does one keep their identity when in a relationship, especially a long-term relationship cause I hear a lot of women, mothers, specifically saying that, saying things they're not exactly saying oh, I lost myself. But when you ask them what's your idea of fun, is usually wrapped around their child or the family unit or what do you do to relax, and they're like relax, what's that?

Chantée Christian: 19:44

You know so, like what brings you joy, and they're like, oh, that's a good question. I'm like, let's talk about that, but how does one keep their identity when they have other responsibilities, like that?

Ali Guydan: 19:59

As you're asking me this I just keep hearing self-care is not selfish.

Chantée Christian: 20:05

Yes, yes.

Ali Guydan: 20:07

Like showing up for our kids. We wanna do so much for them, for our partner, for the family unit. Like you said, there's so much time we have in a day to allocate to everything that sometimes we can neglect ourselves. But if we don't give even an hour a week to ourselves or hopefully a little bit more than an hour, but sometimes to ourself each week we're gonna run ourselves down into the ground and we can't keep going. So it's just knowing that it's okay to take time for yourself and it's okay to share that with your partner and say this has been a really busy week. Can I have a night out with my dinner with a friend, or go get my nails done, or go for a walk or just meditate, have time to myself, whatever that looks like to what you need, and have a balance for both people, because the other person in the relationship is gonna need that too and have that.

Ali Guydan: 20:54

I think also, when it comes down to like what's really important in our values, having that time to reconnect with ourselves is something that's important to have and just trying to make that time and sometimes it can get to the point where we've not given energy into that part of ourselves for so long that we don't know where to start. So what does that look like? I don't even know what I like. What do I do? What do you mean Like, take time for yourself? You have to relearn that. So it's trying new things, going for a walk, having quiet time and then, if you feel like your mind goes back to but I have this whole list of things to do.

Ali Guydan: 21:31

That list is still gonna be there at the end of it, so dwelling on it isn't gonna change that. So it's telling yourself and giving yourself permission to give back to yourself. The same way you give to your kids, you give to your partner, you give to your pets, you give to whoever it is in your life.

Chantée Christian: 21:48

That's good. I have so many clients that are like another one. I send this to them. They're gonna be like what, yeah, yeah, Because it's so common, I think. Just, even so, I don't have children.

Chantée Christian: 22:05

However, I date someone who does and I'm constantly saying, well, what did you do for yourself today? Like, what did you do for yourself this week? Did you go? It's like I didn't have time, I didn't have time, and I'm like the more that you don't make time for you, the more that you're built up just with unrecognizable frustration. Right, People go on throughout their day not realizing what the energy does and once it goes into their body and how it manifests, I'm busy, I'm busy, I'm busy.

Chantée Christian: 22:41

I don't have enough time, I don't have enough time, I don't have enough time, and it's like Alice in Wonderland. They're like racing this clock. That doesn't exist, Right, yeah, and I say that for my person, but I also say that for my friends and I say that for my clients, where I wish there was a button where we could just do a little pause and allow them to just take a breath, and it not be because they locked themselves in the bathroom or that, you know, they had to go sit in the car a little longer before they got out of the car to be, you know, mom, dad or whoever I. Just I wish there was like a button.

Ali Guydan: 23:23

Yeah, it's so important. I always ask my clients that too. I'm like what are you doing for yourself this week? It's like one of we all like, I'm sure, like our way of closing out sessions. It's like one of my go-to's, because if we don't ask and it's not natural, it's not going to be on the forefront of someone's mind. It's a habit and a routine you have to build in and start to like acknowledge for yourself that I deserve this. It's okay and you know we all. It's a need we all have.

Chantée Christian: 23:52

Yeah, and I think one of the things when you said one of the like we have some of, we have signature questions, right, just in general, and one of mine is how, how is that? Or how are you honoring yourself? Because I come from a space where I believe that you are the boundary right and so you don't have to make a boundary. You are it, and so when you operate as such, then how are you honoring your boundary, how are you honoring yourself? And so it's one of the questions that I ask often to my clients, and sometimes they'll say I know it's not like oh well, this is awareness. Yeah, do you? You have an opportunity to make a change? Is that something that you are willing to do now, yes or no?

Chantée Christian: 24:42

And I think that, as we're talking about this, one of the things that's coming to me is one of my coaching friends. She loves to say what was the highlight of your day, and I'll never forget the first time she asked me that I felt so bad, which is rare. But I felt bad because I was like it's this Mountain Dew. I had a Mountain Dew in my hand and I was like I lighted my days in Mountain Dew and then I was like, damn, that's pretty bad, like of an entire day as a Mountain Dew, let me go back and replay the day, because I had forgotten that there were like really big things that had happened within the day, but because everything was just happening.

Chantée Christian: 25:24

I wasn't aware of it, not consciously, and so when I text her back, I was like wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, take back my Mountain Dew comment, like that wasn't it. And she was like uh-huh, uh-huh. And I'm saying that because it reminds me that when we don't stop and actually think about it, like you said, we won't do it, it won't become a habit and is out of space where our mind will go. And so, if we don't take a pause, do some self-care, because it's also not luxury, right? This is a mandate.

Ali Guydan: 26:03

Yes.

Chantée Christian: 26:05

It is a mandate, our minds won't be hardwired to think that it's normal.

Ali Guydan: 26:10

Yeah, yeah, I love that. I love that question to ask people. I'll ask a similar one too, of like how does this serve you and how does this serve what you're hoping for bringing in all of that? But then, as you're sharing that, it's also making me think back to what we talked about, like the journaling or writing stuff down. I think the biggest benefit of that is that reflection time, cause if we don't stop to reflect, we're just on autopilot and we can't say what felt good, what didn't feel good, what sensations did I have in my body? Was that good, was that bad? Am I running myself too hard? Do I need a break? It's that, yeah, that time to pause and reflect, which can come from conversations, but also that time where we can just check out and be solely with ourselves, is so important, and that's fostering that loving relationship with yourself.

Chantée Christian: 27:06

Yeah.

Ali Guydan: 27:07

Spending that time by yourself.

Chantée Christian: 27:09

Yeah, because so often in relationships of any sort, we offer others so much more grace than we offer ourselves. And I even think about some of my clients who will work before the sun comes up, and well, after the sun goes down, they won't take time off for health. They won't take a time off for anything. They feel guilty, they feel bad and or they felt we have been working, we have been working. However, it's the same thing right when they tied up their worth with their work. And so what will people think about me if I'm not on at six o'clock in the morning and eight o'clock at night? Well, they'll think you have a life.

Ali Guydan: 28:00

Yes, they'll think you have a life and there's so many parts to us, not just work, not just family, not just whatever we're giving our energy and attention to.

Chantée Christian: 28:13

Yes, yes, we are not linear. We are not linear, oh yes. So I'm curious what's your take on the term work-life balance?

Ali Guydan: 28:27

Well, I think it's important to have balance, but it's more than just our work and just our life. And because, as you were talking to, I was thinking, there's this exercise that I like to do with people, because we learn through our senses, to visual, hearing, tactile, smell, taste, whatever. We learn through all of our senses. Sometimes a visual of this can be really shocking for people, like we'll create a pie chart together, make a list of all the different parts of life and then give percentages to it and put it together on a pie chart, and it can be like whoa, things are way off balance. No wonder I feel the way that I feel.

Ali Guydan: 29:07

And then we'll recreate another pie chart how do you want the flow to be? And then we see the beginning, we see the end, we create that roadmap to get there of what are the steps we need to take to start to make these changes, always with, like prefacing, that change doesn't happen overnight, and so you're going to see two steps forward, one step back along the way, and that's okay and normal, but there's so much that that visual does. So work-life balance yes, it's important, but work in everything, balance or just everything. Balance, I think, is such an important way to see things, because as we make the pie charts or we start to think about where our energy and attention is going to, so many different things can come up that maybe wasn't factored in before.

Chantée Christian: 29:58

Yeah, I love that. I do that with my clients as well. I typically have them do it as a love assignment and then come back with their reflection of it, because it gives them time to really look at it and say, oh.

Ali Guydan: 30:12

Yeah.

Chantée Christian: 30:18

Because a lot of time is around time management. People are like, oh, I don't have enough time in the day, it's too much, I need more time. If I had four more hours, you would still say you don't have enough time if we're being out of it. And so what would you do with the time? What do you do with your current time? Right, so let's make a pie chart and list off everything that you have some sort of responsibility, accountability to and for. Put it on there, but then I have them. Do an ideal one, but would you like it to be? And then let's look at the gaps. So if we're looking at a gap analysis, where are we and what can you shift now? That'll get you closer to that.

Ali Guydan: 30:57

Yeah, I love it. We're like on the same page. It's so important to do that.

Chantée Christian: 31:03

So important. When you were saying it, I was like this is why I love coaching. I love it. I love it when you think about life coaching. Well, let me back up. You said that you do educational therapy. Yeah, Tell the people what that means.

Ali Guydan: 31:22

So I do a lot of executive functioning skills, which is like time management, a lot of working with ADHD, so keeping things in order, finding routines, working on all the things that come along with that with executive functioning skills but also any other type of learning disability. I work primarily with that with middle school and up to adults. If it's outside of the school realm, it's going to be kind of really similar to coaching. To be honest, it's like what isn't working in your life and let's figure out how we can make things work and shift things around and get organized. Work on time management. If it comes to school, it can be actual. Let's say, if there's struggling with writing, struggling with reading, struggling with organization, we tackle those things and I'll give tools and tips on how to do that, but also advocating for yourself.

Ali Guydan: 32:17

How do you talk to your teachers? What do you need for yourself? How do you balance your time, how do you take care of yourself? And it's not necessarily grade focused, let's get you all A's. It's like let's just see what feels difficult and give the tools and strategies so that feels better. So it's a lot of self-esteem work that we do as well, of just seeing what strengths are, what doesn't feel as strong.

Ali Guydan: 32:42

And then the language that I use. I'm also very mindful of it because I don't like to use, let's say, the word hard or this is difficult, whatever any negative term. I'll say it's tricky, cause some things are tricky for all of us, but then labeling something as tricky, compared to like this, I can't do this. It's a very different mindset, and then we're gonna approach things differently, based on the language and mindset that we use for something. So I'll see grades transform, I'll see confidence transform, but it's not the focus on the grades, it's the focus on the mindset, the emotions, the tools, the tips and the strategies that people really need to just grow and evolve in that setting too.

Chantée Christian: 33:25

Yeah, I love that. I love that because language matters so much and it is a direct correlation and it affects how we think and how we feel and how we are. I love it. I feel like people are not gonna believe, but I feel like we had, like there was a cheat sheet somewhere, because I have a thing about words and I have a thing about the way people talk about themselves and so when people say, you know, oh, that's really hard, or that was the worst, I could do so much better, or and it was better than what you did, the best that you could do with what you have, when we start putting words like better, best and worse and bad into things, they put its own judgment and so feel with judgment and judging ourselves.

Chantée Christian: 34:18

And so some of my clients know that I haven't vanished the word self-compassion from any of our conversations, because the word compassion by itself means pitiless sorrow and then, just because they put self in front of it, it was automatically supposed to mean kindness and all these things. I was like I call BS on just the word people. Hello, I don't know who created this language, but it's wildly incorrect when you think about it, right, cause I tell my clients this all the time. I don't wanna have self-compassion for myself, not in the way that compassion itself is defined. Yeah, it's like self-compassion is not defined the same way that self and or compassion is.

Ali Guydan: 35:05

Yeah, you, which really it matters too, because, let's say, even I thought in a version to saying I think I said like strengths and like Challenging areas, or something I have like an aversion to, like the term weakness, because we'll start to identify. I am this, I struggle with this. Yeah, too, if we say you know it's tricky or you know I'm working on it, whatever like future supportive Growth, mindset, words that we can come up with, it just makes such a difference of the labels we use, who we identify ourselves as and what we think is possible for us. So, yeah, and that I never thought of self-compassion that way, I never heard it like I literally think I'm gonna look that up after this because I didn't, yeah, I didn't know, but it's important and it's something that I think we should all be mindful of.

Chantée Christian: 35:56

Yeah, like so in all fairness, I'm also a calm major, so words matter so much to me, but I can't remember. Oh, I do recall we one of my aunts is heavily into a mega church, and in that they they had given like a gifts assessment and she had ranked really low on compassion. And I did a similar one and I was like, oh, me too. This is like God. Why is it this? Resonating, though? And then the word just kept coming up. So I was with one of my coaches and she was like you know, we really need to talk about having more compassion. I was like, every time someone says the word, it's like a knot in my stomach, like there was like no resignation with it. I'm like why is this word causing so much physical Reaction? And so I went and googled the word. I was like what is this word? And I was like, oh, this word now wonder.

Chantée Christian: 36:56

I think that there are times for compassion in general. Like, let me be clear, I don't want anyone to think that I do not think that there are times for Compassionate and having a compassionate heart and space. However, I'm talking about me and my grace and my kindness for self. I don't want to have sorrow and pity for myself, yeah, disguise it as something that is supposed to be, what it is kindness and grace and forgiveness and all of the things for self right and so and one of my clients was like you, just trying to take another word out of my vocabulary, I was like you, look at it for yourself. Yeah, and oh my god, I tried to tell you that is. It's the oddest thing to me. I said just because you put self in front of a word doesn't mean the word changes.

Ali Guydan: 37:45

Yeah.

Chantée Christian: 37:46

Right. So yeah, I'm actually making a note to put it inside of the podcast notes, because I'm sure there will be some disbelievers.

Ali Guydan: 37:53

I know it's so interesting, but yeah, as you were listing all of that, it's just. It's like having that self love for yourself, because there's gonna be times that feel good, at times that things don't go as well as we had hoped, and it's all okay, and it's all less and it's all growth, because the things that go really well Awesome. Let's do more of this. If something doesn't go super well, there's always a takeaway message, always what can I get from this? What does this tell me about future directions that I want to go in? You know, what do I want to try the same? What do I want to try different? And there's no really good or bad things. It's just messages that we get back based off of experience, and from that we can make educated decisions of where we'd like to go with it, based on the information that we have at hand.

Chantée Christian: 38:38

Yes, and I would even go a step further than educated like conscious yeah, that's a better word. Yeah, they're so conscious Because we make educated, unconscious decisions all the time mm-hmm.

Ali Guydan: 38:53

Yeah, more like yeah, awareness and based on whatever that we've experienced.

Chantée Christian: 38:59

Yeah, and that's all it is, because the more awareness that we gain, the more choice that we get, and the more choice that we have, the more we're able to say, hmm, let me either go find out more about that, get clarity on it, or I have enough to make a decision that I'm okay with, however the chips may land.

Chantée Christian: 39:22

Yeah, you know, and so I love it. I love it because it's like a hundred percent with I don't even think I told you this, but it goes a hundred percent with my triple A's world of Awareness, acceptance and authenticity right. I think I might have just I told you about those, but it is literally a cyclical, cyclical right. So the more awareness that we have, then we get to make choice, and even not making a choice, like having a standstill, is still making a choice when we have more awareness and one of those things, we have more consciousness right, and then we're able to accept. However, the impacts are for ourselves directly and others potentially indirectly, and we become more and more and more of a version of us. So I love that. Yeah, that's awesome. So so we have talked about quite a few things today and I'm curious what would you want to leave the people with?

Ali Guydan: 40:23

Well, we've talked definitely about a lot of things, but I feel like one of the themes we Talked about it's just getting to know ourselves better and what serves us, based on experience. So I would say the thing I would leave people with is just Taking I don't know, checking in with yourself, seeing where you are, what feels good, what's an alignment, what feels out of alignment, and, based on that, where you want to see yourself grow and how you want to see yourself evolve, because, ultimately, we're never going to be the same person we are today, a month from now, a year from now, a few years from now. So, thinking of where you want to go and what you want to do and what areas of your life you want to put more Energy and effort into to feel like you're happy as hell, oh I love that, I love that.

Chantée Christian: 41:15

So where can the people find you?

Ali Guydan: 41:18

They can find me on my website, Alison dash Marie calm, or on my Instagram that I just started, like a month or month and a half ago, alison Marie coaching, and those two places would probably be the best place to find me. Okay, and you I can vouch for your Instagram.

Chantée Christian: 41:38

It's awesome. I love it. I'm constantly reposting things in my stories, so definitely go check her out on Instagram, and we'll also have that information in the podcast notes, so for anyone that didn't catch it, no worries, it'll be in there as well. Hey, thank you for Thank you for joining me on the my best shift podcast and, if I heard you correctly, this was your first podcast, as a guest.

Ali Guydan: 42:05

This is my first podcast. I'm so happy to be here.

Chantée Christian: 42:09

Yes, I'm excited, thank you. I have so many first timers. I love it. I'm like I need to go back and make a list of all the first timers. I love it, I love it, I love it, I love it. Thank you for listening to this week's episode of the my best shift podcast. I Enjoyed talking with Ali about growth and self evolution. For more information or if you like to reach out to please visit @MyBest Shift t_ LLC on Instagram. Remember, stop doing shit that doesn't serve you. See you later.