S4:E7: Redefining Gender Roles and Addressing Men's Mental Health (with Elise Micheals)

Ever asked yourself why men often bottle up their feelings? Does it have anything to do with societal expectations and traditional gender roles? You're not alone. Join me, Chantée Christian, and men's mental health guru, Elise Micheals, as we break down the complexities of men's mental health, particularly the obstacles they face in asking for help. Elise, using her vast experience, gives an enlightening perspective on how societal conditioning has forced men into silence.

We delve into the intriguing world of gender roles and power dynamics, focusing on scenarios where women out-earn their partners. You'd be surprised at how this stirs up feelings of competition, insecurity, and even emasculation in men. Elise and I offer tangible solutions on how both genders can learn to support each other emotionally and mentally, defying traditional gender roles.

We illustrate how childhood trauma can shape our adult relationships and behaviors in unexpected ways. We emphasize the power of self-awareness in dealing with triggers and miscommunications. Tune in and let's redefine the dynamics between men and women, one conversation at a time.
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More About Elise: Elise Micheals is a trauma-informed men's coach who helps men find purpose and passion again by healing subconscious trauma. Over the years she has worked with hundreds of men to understand the struggles they go through and the way they learn best to offer a logical, actionable way of healing, specifically for them. It's her greatest mission to help change the way the world sees men's mental health so the next generation of men doesn't have to suffer.

Connect with Elise via Instagram | LinkedIn | Website

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INSPIRED ACTIONS/THOUGHTS FOR THIS EPISODE:
What's your perspective on gender roles?
How are you supporting the men in your life?
Men, what does support look like for you?
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Transcript

Chantée Christian: 0:07

Hello good people. This is Chantée Christian, and you are listening to the my Best Shift podcast. In today's episode, Elise and I talk about the interesting dynamics between women and men. Hi Elise, how are you doing? I'm doing so well. How are you doing? I am doing well. I'm so glad to see you. I'm happy to be here. So, before we get too deep into our conversation, why don't you tell the people a little bit about yourself?

Elise Micheals: 0:54

My name is Elise Micheals. I'm a men's mental health coach. I've been for the last few years and I help men find their purpose and passion again by healing subconscious drama.

Chantée Christian: 1:04

I love it and you joined me on my TV show.

Elise Micheals: 1:08

I did yes, we dove deep into it on the show and it was so awesome to dive deep into that with you and see you in person and talk about that stuff.

Chantée Christian: 1:16

I know I'm always complaining about social media just because it's easy, but I'm really always complaining about social media and yet there are so many gyms on social media and you are one of those gyms that I found, and I'm just so happy for you to be just a part of this journey with me. So I'll go ahead and get that out now before I get to the end. So I just wanted to say thank you.

Elise Micheals: 1:39

Well, thank you, I appreciate that.

Chantée Christian: 1:41

Yes, so all right. So men's mental health and being a men's mental health coach how did you get into it? Like Telethmore.

Elise Micheals: 1:53

Yeah. So I actually started off wanting to be a female spiritual coach. But I started my business right before the pandemic and I didn't put a tie line and put like women's coach or anything, but I posted videos on LinkedIn. That's where I started my business and only men reached out to me for help. So I thought it was super weird. I was like how am I supposed to help them? But what I had been studying, I understood in my thought process well, I'm not helping men or women, I'm helping people heal from their pain.

Elise Micheals: 2:21

Yeah, so let me give it a try, and then I found out that men didn't have a lot of support for mental health. So I said, fuck it, why not? Let me be the person I was going to open the doors? Yeah, whatever criticism or judgment I get, so be it, because they're asking me, so I'm going to answer.

Chantée Christian: 2:38

Yeah, and I love that because I remember when I was going through one of my coaching programs, one of the biggest things that they taught us was you can call your coaching whatever you want to coach, but you're coaching people and you're coaching them in their life, and so however they are showing up for you is what you're coaching Right? That's, your obligation is to help them move forward, help them heal from their current and showing them how they're holding themselves back from their future. Yeah, I love that. So you said something that, like it, just tingles in my ear every time I hear it. You say that men don't feel supported and that they obviously are being like I need some help, I want some help. And so what does support for men look like? Oh, that's such a beautiful question.

Elise Micheals: 3:32

A lot of men need support so badly. And when you say, what does support for men look like? Even if you ask them, they really don't know because they don't ask for it, because they don't feel like they can. So for us to say, like, what is support for a man? If you ask him, he really won't know because he's going to be like I don't. You know, I do things all by myself, I am self-sufficient.

Elise Micheals: 3:57

But deep down, support for a man this is what I've discovered from my coaching, and men who are listening may disagree that may have their own style of what support looks like for them, but what I've seen as a whole is support for a man is really more along the lines of emotional and mental support as opposed to like a physical support system.

Elise Micheals: 4:17

You know the way we're going in our feminism movement and everything like that is like everything has to be 50-50. Like I need to make 50% of the money, you need to do 50% of the chores. And what I think people are really losing sight of is that partnership is not we do 50% of every single thing, it's we stay in our zone of genius and as long as the foundation is covered, it's 50-50. Right. So men feel most supported when their journey is supported, when they feel respected, when they feel validated and when they feel masculine right. But a lot of the time they're becoming emasculated because their purpose is being taken away or they're being disrespected or they're not being appreciated for the value that they are giving, because other people want to take ownership or they want to compete with them and they're like what the hell? So kind of digress there.

Chantée Christian: 5:10

But no, this is interesting because, as you were talking, I'm thinking. Well, the one of the things that's sticking out in my mind for me is women's most right. Part of that movement right was to have a right for women to be equal, and I put that in air quotes. I wonder what has that done to men over the years? Right, because for a very long time men were told and taught and still are, I believe, and I could be wrong but they are told and taught to be the head of the household, and to be the head of the household you have to be the breadwinner. But if you look at stats like, women are making more money than men, and so how do heterosexual relationships balance? That imbalance is making me think.

Elise Micheals: 6:10

Yeah. So I mean it's such a good topic that you bring up, because what we teach men and what we teach women is so different. Because we're still teaching men the ways of the old generation, while encouraging women that they can be anything they want and they can do anything they want and in fact they should and not to let no man take away their rights or respect, which is like fair right, we were, we didn't have rights for a long time, but it's turned from giving women equal rights to bashing the man and making him feel inferior and making him feel like he ain't shit and he's still gotta rise up to meet the queen, right. So I think we've turned heterosexual relationships into competitions where it's like now we both work, now we both do household chores, now we both take care of the kids. But where is the love? Where action? Is the partnership?

Elise Micheals: 7:04

Partnership in marriages shouldn't be based on, like, household tasks or money.

Elise Micheals: 7:08

And I'm not saying like the old way is better, where the woman stays home and only takes care of the children, the man makes the money, and that's the way it should be, but I'm saying that maybe it doesn't have to be hey, I have to make as much money as you, or else I'm less than you, right, like we need to refocus on the partnership, the love aspect, the passion, and like, hey, this is actually my zone of genius.

Elise Micheals: 7:30

I'm a woman and my zone of genius is I really like to work, I really like to bring home the bacon, I really like to do this, and he actually likes to take care of the kids. So that's how we split it up and it's not a competition, right, Like whatever works for you, but we've brought competition and that emasculates men and it makes them feel like, okay, what's the point of me being here? Then, if you wanted me to do this and now you don't want me to do this and I don't want to take care of the kids, like, I want to work, right, but like now I'm being forced to do this thing, I don't want to do with the people that say, well, that's just being a dad. It's being a dad to take care of your kid, yes, but it's not necessarily being a dad to stay home and take care of kids, right, like there's so many different jobs that fit a person and sort of force someone and say this is your responsibility, I think is a little bit incorrect.

Chantée Christian: 8:20

Yeah, and I think also one I wish I knew you like 18 years ago probably would have saved me some time. I remember dating this guy because when you said it it draw a memory for me. I remember dating this guy. He was in the army and I had just gotten a new promotion and I was so excited about it and I was telling him about it and he was like, oh, if you get one more of those, then I'm gonna have to go get another job to make the same amount of money you make. And I was like, well, that's not really my problem. So the version of me now would have a little more curiosity. From where that stemmed? From right, because it became an issue for us. It became a huge thing. And I was like, yo, what's the problem? Unless you're making three times as much as I am, we can't live off of one income. So what's the problem here?

Chantée Christian: 9:18

And I say that from a realistic perspective, like I personally know me and I know the things that I like I like to get my hair done, I like to get my nails done, I like to go out to eat in my car, you like my stuff, right, people will listen and be like she's so materialistic. I really don't care. I'm telling you what I like. Okay, can I live without them? Absolutely, do I want to. No, and if I had a choice, would I go.

Chantée Christian: 9:45

So why would I be with someone who has a mindset that that is the old way of living? Right, it's something that would work. That doesn't work for us, I don't mind not working. Let me be clear I don't want to be a stay-at-home mom either and I want to be a rich housewife. If anyone is listening, just to be clear Like I want a cleaning service, I would like a chef. I want the things. I say that in a joking but yet very serious perspective of I think that in the midst of this toxic masculinity, femininity, like debate, there is this space that women have fought so hard to get to, a place that they now don't know how to turn on the empathy and to turn on the understanding switch that allows them to be a safe and a brave space for men to come to to say, hey, this is a little bit of a thing for me.

Elise Micheals: 10:49

Yeah, I mean, you 100% nailed it. Just going back to the beginning, men don't feel like they can ask for support, especially from women, because we've taught them that they shouldn't and it's like we've repeated this many times. But men don't feel like they can share their emotions and a lot of time they are shamed by women because of it. Because here is also a really hard reality as we've shifted very into the extreme of the feminist movement, where women are making their own money and getting their nails done and feeling good about themselves, really investing in themselves. You get to a point and men feel this way too. You get to a point where you have this lifestyle and you don't want to leave the lifestyle because you're like, if I could do this by myself, why would I then go backwards by partnering with what I partner with someone I want to elevate?

Elise Micheals: 11:35

And for men, where their validation and their masculinity and their identity is tied into how much they make. A woman who makes more than what they can provide does intimidate them. It does upset them because they feel automatically emasculated by it, because they feel like I cannot provide for you with the lifestyle that you have right Like they can't afford it.

Elise Micheals: 11:57

So then some men who are not aware will try to talk down to you to make you feel like you should be doing less or you shouldn't be working for it, because then if you drop down a level, then they can all of a sudden be the man again.

Chantée Christian: 12:09

Yeah.

Elise Micheals: 12:10

And I think what men and women need to understand is that just because women are making more money and have that lifestyle doesn't mean that they're trying to emasculate men. But they're not going to come down. And so it kind of forces men to either, if they're too scared to run away from women, or to rise up, like some men are encouraged by it and see it as a challenge and elevate themselves and say, listen, I see you as a growing woman and I'm a growing man and you make more than me now. But, like, it's not a competition, but you inspire me to elevate my own purpose and my passion to rise above. And then you partner together and that's how you come into alignment. But it takes a strong woman and a strong man to see each other's inspiration and not competition.

Elise Micheals: 12:51

But exactly and I know I kind of digress again, but like you said, with the support, like women are also getting in their ego, just like men did for so long about I make my own money. I need the best man, the best looking man, the best supportive man. And you know we're like oh, women are going into their masculine. I don't think we're talking about masculine, feminine energy anymore, I think that we're just feeling the power of individuality and self-sufficiency and getting so caught up in it that we forget we do need each other. Yeah, like, even though you're a woman who makes all this, you know you make your own money and you get to do nice things for yourself. Like we all desire deeply strong partnership Absolutely. And, like you said, I would love to be a rich housewife. I would translating into I would love to be taken care of. I would love to have a man who can support me, but, translated even further, I would love to have a man who can support me more than I can support myself, not less than I can support myself.

Chantée Christian: 13:51

Exactly.

Elise Micheals: 13:52

And most men haven't been able to figure out. How can I support these strong women more than they can support themselves? They just want it to go back to the old days, where women can't support themselves, so that they can once again, with where they're at, you know, be more powerful, be stronger.

Chantée Christian: 14:09

There's something about that power shift right and it's a power dynamic because even when in relationships like you were talking about bringing back the love and the passion, right, and so when thinking about that love and that passion and bringing it back as a unit into the household and as a unit, one of the things that I think about is how do we do that in a healthy way?

Chantée Christian: 14:36

Right, Because I think that it's really important for people to understand and to hear that even when you're in a healthy relationship, stuff comes up, Like if you're in a real good one, some real good shit will come up right and you can. You really need someone to help you navigate it, and that's not necessarily your partner, right, it's a coach, it's a therapist, it's a tribe of healers of whatever sort you believe in and are willing and able to get to because it's the yielding to the relationship. And what does that look like when you have passion and you have two people that are like we're not in competition, but we're both inspiring each other to go do it? Because to me that's sexy as hell. Like you're going to go do your thing, let's go do it. Like, how can I support you? How can I do it. When you said that, that's what came to mind for me.

Elise Micheals: 15:35

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, and I think it's the shift to where a lot of men are asking how can I please the women of today, how can I, as a man, support and be an ally of the women of today? And it's a really great question. But we're going about it in the form of like, how can I serve them? And I think the best way that men and women can serve each other is by serving themselves in their own divine essence and their own purpose.

Elise Micheals: 16:03

Because a man who is focused on his own goals and like a non ego way, right, like, not I'm arrogant, I'm full of myself, but like, I love what I do, I'm making my money, I'm supporting myself. No matter what you do, you don't have to make millions of dollars. Just like be in love with your life and what you do, and you will attract a woman who is also in love with her life and what she does. And that's when you can partner. But it's when you're so focused on the other, like women become like this too. They're so obsessed with. How can I get him to like me? How can I impress him? How can I do this? And you never get the guy that you want. Like that, or if you do get the guy you volunteered, I always ends up being disappointed because you're not being yourself and you're becoming codependent in the way of.

Elise Micheals: 16:42

My purpose is to serve this person or serve this gender, and when you do that, you lose sight of yourself. And then you're not supportive and you're so intense and you're like why aren't you making this much money? Why aren't you coming home to me, why aren't you doing this? And it becomes so heavy Like you. Just use your example. If you're a man in the military, instead of saying, oh man, I have to make three times more than you now, or whatever. If he was like, wow, that's freaking amazing, this is what I'm doing over here, and now you inspire me, because now I want to go to captain or want to go to this, you would have been like, oh my God, like that's so sexy that my success inspired you and he's still doing his thing and he's like, or if he's like hey, I love that you're doing this, I'm also on my own path.

Elise Micheals: 17:21

We may have to separate, like at this certain point in time and you're like man that sucks. That's like kind of scary, but like also I think we can work it out, like maybe you work it out that way.

Elise Micheals: 17:28

But oh I think it's sexy because he's still in his lane, still supporting you, but he's not going to digress from what he wants to do and I think that's where a lot of men get lost is because they want to love the women of today and they want to be allies, but they're losing sight of their own power.

Elise Micheals: 17:44

And what I want to say is like don't lose sight of your own power and your own progress, like you still matter. Get out there and do what you got to do for this planet and you will meet a woman who is healthy and even a strong, independent woman like we are can become in her feminine when we meet the right guy, like we are so in our masculine every day. But listen, I would love to be a working trophy wife. Listen to me. I would love to be with a partner who's listening, listening stable.

Elise Micheals: 18:13

I don't want to be doing this alone forever.

Chantée Christian: 18:15

You gotta be fucked up. I never said I don't need no man.

Elise Micheals: 18:18

I mean I have definitely said that, but you know it's like a joke, but I definitely don't want to be doing this alone forever, Like that's not the point?

Chantée Christian: 18:25

No, it's not the point. And I remember Destiny's Child Song Independent Women, right, and you know it's a good concept, right, and being independent, and I think that this is the thing that like from a society. I think that we have altered perception in reality, because being an independent woman doesn't mean being a single woman. Yes, being an independent woman means that I am self sufficient. It means that I have my own thoughts. It means that I'm able to do and be. It does not mean that I am reliable and that I am dependent.

Chantée Christian: 19:08

Right, and there was this misconception, this concept of oh, you're so independent, what the fuck does that mean? Like, I think I'm supposed to be independent. However, it was in those spaces with men that weren't ready to be with someone who had and shared the drive, right, so when you said that, it just was like uh, duh, yeah, absolutely Right. Like, and there were times where I said I don't, why do I need to be with you? I could do bad by myself. Like, what are we talking about here? Right, and no one ever says I could do good by myself. They say I could do bad by myself. That's great, because we desire the partnership and we know the benefit of what it would look like and be like to be alone, right, like the goal is not to be alone at 80. The goal is to have a life to be able to reflect on with your person, whoever that is.

Chantée Christian: 20:04

And so I just like I don't know, like I struggle with women's mom because there wasn't a time where black women weren't able to work, like we always had to work, we were always working.

Chantée Christian: 20:20

I would like there to be a reverse of this movement where we worked but we also had the same rights, right, and so there was always this challenge. And so when I think about specifically black men, when I think about black men, and I think about their challenge that they have, in a household with a woman that has always worked and was always providing, to now be in spaces where women are providing more Right, and they're no longer the full breadwinner, like I imagine what is going on in their minds as they are watching and seeing and being raised in these households. Right, and I was just watching and I'm saying this I know I'm like digressing like a mug, but I was saying this because I was watching this clip, I want to say even maybe last night where this young boy said well, how do I know how to become a man if I don't have a father? In the space?

Chantée Christian: 21:22

I think I think I shared it yeah, yeah, yeah, and so and I I thought like wow, like that's so.

Chantée Christian: 21:32

It touched me in a different kind of way, because when I think about men, sometimes I think because I grew up in a two-parent household, I think sometimes I forget that that's not always the case.

Chantée Christian: 21:46

And I also think that because I had such a tribe of really strong women and I use that word very loosely because the word strong just is grind I literally like I started itching when I said it but very strong women that I had visuals of what it looked like to work, what it looked like to provide and what it looked like to just be that I forget that men sometimes most times don't have that same example. And so, as you're working with men, what's one of the biggest things that you see, a lot of the things that they're feeling and that they're being and that they're being in is a younger version of them. And so how are you helping them heal from that younger version of them so they could show up as a more improved version of themselves and a more healed version of themselves, to be in space and in community in their relationships?

Elise Micheals: 22:42

Yeah. So that's an amazing question and I want to tie it back into what you just said. You had an amazing vision of what strong women looked like in your household and you even had a two parent household and with the Steve Harvey clip that was on your stories that I saved, he said how do I become a strong man if I don't have a vision? Yeah, like if I don't have a representation of a man, most men's vision of what it's like to be a man comes from single mother families.

Elise Micheals: 23:13

There's so many children who grow up in a fatherless environment and, like Steve Harvey said, he's going to get the vision of what it's like to be a man from somewhere. Someone he sees on social media, most likely because that's what's so available to us or someone who's in his immediate family and uncle, a brother, a cousin, a milkman who comes over every Tuesday. I don't know Someone who's in his immediate vicinity. You know like that is what he's going to see, but whoever is in his surrounding environment and when we're talking, you know about the representation like strong females who do the work are usually in survival mode.

Elise Micheals: 23:56

Yeah, and so what he's getting is a representation of a woman who works a lot but usually doesn't have the emotional capacity to be in her feminine, to be a nurturing mother. And what you saw, too, is you're like I had a good representation of what a strong woman looked like, but I'm sure you don't know how to relax. I'm sure you don't know what it's like to just mind your business at least.

Elise Micheals: 24:18

But like we don't ever think about this when we get older, because my mom too, like I had divorced parents who are always still involved in each other's lives in a very toxic way, but my mom always worked and my dad always worked too, oh God, so I also didn't know, right.

Chantée Christian: 24:33

And.

Elise Micheals: 24:34

I always worked Like, ever since I was little from like a farm, you know like.

Elise Micheals: 24:37

So we're always working, we don't know how to slow down, and so it's a bunch of mixed signals about like, who am I supposed to be, our women, and how do we bring that into relationship? All of us bring our childhood into relationship because the brain soaks up behaviors like a template and most people don't want to recognize this. It doesn't matter if you had trauma in your past or not. Everything is traumatizing to us as children because we take it from an ego perspective as the brain is developing. This is just science. Like, your brain has adopted behaviors and however you learn something, whatever age you were at. You're probably a 35 year old man walking around with a 15 year old brain set because you learned this is how I receive love, or this is how women act, or this is the validation, because that's what you perceived during that age. So what we do is we acknowledge that session and then we rewrite the neural pathways to create a new behavior for what we actually want.

Chantée Christian: 25:35

Yes, Because and I tell my clients this too Male, female, I don't care and they get the same spiel at some point where I tell them to evaluate where they're coming from, when they're responding right, and they're like what's that mean? Well, what version of you, what age of you, is responding? Because, prime example, I got triggered by a question about the type of food I was eating and I was like what is your problem? Go mind your business. You know, that's what I was saying to myself. Y'all. I didn't say it out loud, although they may differ and say that I said might have said some of it out loud Because I went and took a beat and was like why did that bother me so much?

Chantée Christian: 26:28

What version of me is being triggered by this? Because this is not 39, 40 year old Shantay that's responding to this, because this is silly. And I went back and I was like, oh, wait a minute, this is like 11, 12 year old version of Shantay that is responding. Because my parents were afraid that I was going to be fat and they used to measure out my snacks into these ziplock bags, and so it was something about the acts that triggered it, right? And so I went and talked to my therapist and a couple of my coaches and I came back. I was like you know what? That wasn't you, it was me. Per usual.

Chantée Christian: 27:01

However, I was in a space where I felt brave enough to come back to the person and say you know what, my bad, can we come back to that and talk about it? Because I know I kind of I responded in a way that probably wasn't as kind and loving as I would have liked, right, and they were like all right, but it was being aware. Which is the most important part about all of this and I hope that people hear that part loud and clear is that you have to be aware of you. Right, you mentioned it early. Who are you? Well, part of that is you have to be aware of when you're being, you now, in the current, versus who you are in the past and who, which of you, are showing up in any given moment. Yeah, that's really. I love that. That was dope.

Elise Micheals: 27:49

Yeah, and you said it so perfectly, because unless you are consciously choosing what your response is, it's always going to be a past version of you. Yeah, because the brain is on autopilot. Your behaviors, your habits are on autopilot. The brain wants to run on efficiency. This is how I survive. So every day, all of us are in survival mode.

Elise Micheals: 28:08

Unless you are choosing consciously, this is how I'm going to respond in this moment, and I love that you were able to do that in that moment and actually say why did that bother me so much? I had a similar incident, literally like last night, where I had sent a girlfriend some voice messages and I know how busy she is, but she always prefaces like the first voice message to respond is always talking about how busy she is. She's like sorry, I was doing this and I was doing that, and I told her repeatedly that I didn't care. But for some reason last night I got super triggered by it and as I was getting triggered in my like, I felt it in my chest. I was like, oh my God, like this is triggering me right now and I was like why? And immediately it was because in a different relationship, like a romantic one, they weren't responding to my messages, like within eight hours it was ridiculous and always they would say sorry.

Elise Micheals: 28:59

I was working all day, I was doing this and it pissed me off so much because it wasn't in line with my integrity. And the reason why that makes me so mad is from childhood, because I felt like I was never prioritized, and so when my friend said that, I was like, oh my God, this isn't about you, but I'm feeling triggered right now. So actually thank you, because I know that I have some healing to do, whereas I feel like people don't prioritize me and they just make a bunch of excuses for why they can't answer me. And we can let that take the forefront in our relationships and make it about us and make it about you know, we make a story around it, a new story, when it's really an old story.

Chantée Christian: 29:37

Yes, I mean, we can make stories that are Oscar award winning and it is something that is mind blowing and I even think about. So it happens in all relationships and I'm even thinking about, this week, one of my clients. He is an exec and he is working at a really big company and he's going on and on and on and on and on about some things that are happening at work and I finally stopped and was like, did this really happen? Like did they actually say that? And then he looked at me and he was like well, no, I can tell by the way that they responded. I'm like no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You can't tell what someone said based off of the way that they respond to you, especially in this era of being virtual right.

Chantée Christian: 30:33

But we take things personal, based off of what we would want or what we would do or what we think, and then we create these stories and next thing, you know, we got to be dead of against someone somewhere, and it's like hold on, take a beat. Is this real, Right? Like is this real? And I think, even more so in romantic relationships, we will create stories after story. And I say we as people will create story after story after story, and then that becomes our truth, and so I think that one of the things that we have been talking about is, like you know, partnership and bringing passion back and being us and who we are. One of those things, I think, is to literally take a beat and say is this a story that I'm telling, Is this an assumption that I have created, and or is this real? Because when you're in the present, it's like hold on, wait a minute. Maybe you didn't say that. Maybe you didn't say that.

Elise Micheals: 31:41

Yeah, exactly, Exactly. This is what I tell my clients all the time too, is I was like you're trying to win a chess game without moving any pieces.

Elise Micheals: 31:50

Like we get so caught up in thinking about all of the moves someone can make, all of the responses someone could have. We think we know what they're gonna say. We've been with them for so many years. We know how they're gonna respond. We don't ask them, but we project on them, like we've already heard their response, which makes them either defensive or it makes them respond exactly in the way that we predicted, which sometimes isn't even how we want because we're always going to the default negative.

Elise Micheals: 32:18

And so I tell my clients this all the time they're like, oh well, I didn't say anything, but I know she's gonna say this and I was like, okay, but we don't know that. So let's take a step back, because you haven't even moved the piece yet, you don't know what move they're gonna make, and it doesn't pay us any good to figure out all of the steps they're gonna make before we've even moved the piece. Yeah Right, makes no sense.

Chantée Christian: 32:39

Makes no sense. I was on another conversation and we were talking about that and that was one of the things that I said. I wish that they had one of the. I think the question was around what do we want men to stop doing? When I said I want them to stop mitigating my feelings, I want them to allow me to show up the way that I can and if I fail them in that moment, then have the courage and the strength and the belief and trust in our unit to be able to say, hey, that didn't work, that wasn't what I needed, so that then I can go work on it and become a more improved version of me for the next time.

Chantée Christian: 33:24

But mitigating my feelings and questioning or trying to guess every move I'm gonna make sometimes I'm predictable and sometimes I'm not, and so you're sitting over there doing all that work, when you could have just asked a question or said what you have to say and it could be done. So, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's so real, that's so real. Yeah, when you said it, I'm like that is a thing for me. Don't mitigate my feelings, cause you have a program, right. You have like a 13 week program, yeah, right. So tell our listeners what they would get from working with you with a 13 week program.

Elise Micheals: 34:08

So the 13 week one-on-one coaching program, it's not like a calculated hey, this week we'll work on physical, mental, spiritual, whatever, because then I would just sell it as like a course or something. It's literally the transformation of who you are from, like taking you from a death to a rebirth, and it's hard to give a specific saying for that because everybody is so different. And when someone comes into my like the first session I say are you willing to let go of who you are to become who you're meant to be?

Chantée Christian: 34:45

Yeah.

Elise Micheals: 34:45

And I asked them exactly what they want and they tell me and we usually surpass that within like the first four weeks, because if you're at the bottom mentally, spiritually, emotionally, whatever your top is usually pretty low anyway. And so once we take you there, then you're so expansive because you have no idea how much your past blocks are blocking you and you can only think from the vision that your blocks have you limited by. So when we clear the blocks, all of a sudden it's the expansion right. So it's a complete and total life transformation and I would say spiritual transformation as well. But that defined by everyone is just a little different.

Chantée Christian: 35:29

It's always magical.

Chantée Christian: 35:30

And that, I think, is the power and the amazingness of coaching right and being in space with people and being able to let your guard down right. Like one of my clients told me that one of the reasons why he loves coming to sessions is because it's the time where he feels like he's heard, and we all want to be heard, we want to be seen and we want to be understood, and so I think that is powerful for what you do, and I hope that there's, because my listeners, based off of our metrics, are half women, half men, so people who identify as women and men, and so I hope that there are people that listen to this and that said you know what? Either I want to work with her or I know someone that could benefit from working with her. Based off of that, we've talked about a lot. What would you leave the people with?

Elise Micheals: 36:30

I would say find your joy, because at the end of your life, and really find your joy, man or woman, whoever you are, because at the end of your life you're never gonna look back on your death bed and be like I wish I had worked more, I wish I had stayed in that corporate job more, because I was so terrified of what would happen. I wish I had done whatever is making you miserable now. You are never gonna wish you had done more of it. So find a way out of that. Find your way towards your joy, because when you are feeling good, you are always universally supported.

Chantée Christian: 37:08

Say that one more time for the people in the back.

Elise Micheals: 37:11

When you are feeling good, you are always universally supported. Like even think about this. A happy homeless person always gains more than a cranky one.

Chantée Christian: 37:19

Well yeah. Listen, if you're gonna get out of homelessness.

Elise Micheals: 37:24

You gotta start somewhere and you can't get any change if you upset about it.

Chantée Christian: 37:27

Well, that's a fact. It's something about when you said joy and not happiness, because happiness is temporary, joy is internal. So, even when things aren't going as planned, there's still a space of understanding that better is to come.

Elise Micheals: 37:46

Right joy guides you and holds your belief.

Chantée Christian: 37:50

Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Yeah, I love that.

Elise Micheals: 37:52

And that's also a skill set to learn right. I know that we're kinda coming out on time, but like this is something that I've trained myself in and I tell my clients that they have to train themselves in is you have to trust that you are universally taking care of. I don't care if you believe in God or whatever, but everything in life has a dip and you have to just believe that, whatever your deepest desire is, that the universe is curating it for you. So if something falls away or doesn't go the way that you planned, laugh about it and just say, oh, I thought it was gonna go this way, but I guess I was wrong.

Elise Micheals: 38:26

Space is being cleared so that my true desire can be realized, actualized. A lot of us get so upset, we want the other thing so bad and we withhold the gift that is coming to us. We slow it down, we delay it when really like it's trying to get to you fast what you really deserve. You're trying to hold onto 100 grand and 150 grand is on the way for you 200 grand a million dollars, but you don't wanna let go, and so you're upset and you're blocking your blessing.

Elise Micheals: 38:54

You have to train yourself, and every single time I've trained myself now that, like even in my months that I've dipped, and like my finances, like I just don't worry, I say to myself, well, that means more money is coming. And I train myself to get excited. And then it always follows up with the highest income month I've ever had, so hands on over. But you know what I mean. It holds your belief?

Chantée Christian: 39:15

No, and it does.

Chantée Christian: 39:17

And I think that it's important to remember that, right, because there's so much power in letting go and trusting, like literally just trusting, and not being grumpy or cranky while doing it, but really being in the space and saying you know what?

Chantée Christian: 39:38

I didn't go the way that I had planned, but obviously there's another plan, right, obviously there's a plan, there's something that I didn't know, and one of the things that I always bring back to me to click myself back into it is, I think, about an ex, and I'm like God, thank God that that didn't work out the way that I had wanted it to work out, because I would be divorced about three times over by now and my life would look completely different, right, and so it's just. It brings me back like whoo glad that didn't work out, but at that time, in those moments, I was like, oh my God, I can't believe it didn't work out. And so I would say, also, just remembering that what didn't work out in the past didn't work out for a good reason, right, and usually I don't use the words good and bad, because they have so much judgment. However, like a good reason, oh yeah, that's dope, that's dope. Thank you so much for joining me on my podcast.

Elise Micheals: 40:37

Thank you so much for being here. I loved every second of it. So much fun.

Chantée Christian: 40:44

Thank you for listening to this week's episode of the my Best Shift podcast. I enjoyed this conversation with Elise, as we talked about so many things with one common thread how are we showing up for ourselves and, in turn, showing up for others? For more information or if you'd like to reach out to us, please visit at my Best Shift underscore LLC on Instagram. Remember stop doing shit that doesn't serve you. See you later.