EP50: Take A Peek Behind The Curtain with Lorraine LaPointe

This is winning with wellness, a podcast about inspiring the wellness warrior in you. If you're feeling lost or alone in your wellness journey, or looking for new ideas and inspiration, you are in the right place, a place you can learn about all things wellness, in business life and living. Your host Jenny Ryce, we'll be bringing you inspiring stories and practical tools to improve your overall wellness personally and professionally. Imagine what living a life of wellness would be like. Thank you for joining us today.

Welcome everyone to another episode of winning with wellness. I am so thrilled you're here as well as I have this incredible human being I can't wait for you to meet. Her name is Lorraine LaPointe welcome, Lorraine.

Thank you for having me here, Jenny.

Oh, you guys, you're in for a treat. I can't wait to share a little about about Laureen and then we're gonna dig right into it. So Lorraine is an intuitive dynamic mindset wellness specialist, you can see why I was drawn and attracted to her just by that title. As a former education leader, she recognized the importance of releasing emotional baggage to set yourself free. From the blame shame game, I love those three hits. These days, she helps you focus on resolution of past trauma drama. Because when you have the inner critic or saboteurs when they are dialed down, you can stop eroding your self trust and begin to live a happier, healthier, and more purposeful life. Lorraine understands the need to feel good on purpose, as we positively impact the world. As we express ourselves fully we can enjoy better health, greater clarity and gain the competence of deeper loving relationships that satisfied a soul. I cannot wait to dig into this conversation again. Laureen welcome.

Thank you so much for having me here. And yes, that's that kind of encapsulates the things I love to do.

And I am as you know, we've we've had this conversation I too am a mindset strategist and believe so deeply in the impact of of mindset. Tell me you How do you feel mindset impacts somebody overall wellness?

Well, let me back up the back of the truck. Um, basically what I understand about mindset and the things that drive us is most of the things that we think about, we think about with our conscious mind. And all models of the mind, I'll have a mentor who says all models of the mind are wrong, and some are helpful. The mind is an interesting place so so for the model of the mind that I like to talk to people about is a conscious mind. And it's really the mind that you and I are chatting with right now. And we like to believe it's true, we like to believe that what comes into our conscious mind is true. But it's really the weakest part of our brain, it's the weakest part of our mind, because it can only hold a few pieces of information, you know. And then the strongest part of our mind, of course, is the subconscious mind. And it holds what I call the 10 saboteurs, the drivers of a lot of our behavior, a lot of our perceptions of the world. And those are created and we're really young. And so they create these lenses that we see the world through. And sometimes we aren't even we're like fish in water. Sometimes we aren't even aware it's there, you know, and until you can take a step back and realize how you're perceiving the world. You don't have an opportunity to make a choice. And I believe that freedom is choice. That's how we feel that sense of freedom is we give ourselves choices. So that's in terms of mindset, wellness. That's what I love to do with clients is help them take that step back understand there's 10 Different saboteurs negative inner voices, critical voices, see which ones are active at the moment so that they can then take that step back and make a choice about what it is the do and perceive and, and how that how that makes them feel.

So if we've got somebody listening right now, which I'm sure there are people that are listening and are curious about the Sabbath tour piece, what are some things that you can encourage people to do actively right now to analyze look at have a discussion quiet down those saboteurs. What would be your thoughts around that?

Well, the first thing is understanding that they're there. And the biggest one, the master of the mall is the judge and the judges an interesting saboteurs. It's the voice that we often hear it judges in three different ways that judges us personally not smart enough to do that. Who do you think you are? Some everybody else is smarter than you. Or, you know, that kind of thing. Like, oh, you really screwed that up. You know, that's the sound of the judge. So it judges first ourselves. It's that relentless, nagging, you know, if you do something that's not quite right, in your opinion, well, the rightness is the judge, of course. So it judges ourselves, it judges others. Oh, look how silly they are. What are they know, you know, who they think they are? Those kinds of voices. And then of course, the other thing that the judge does is it judges circumstances. You know, this sucks. My life is awful. Nothing ever works for me. You know, I have no luck. If I don't have bad luck. That's the judge. So those three things and it's a master called the master saga tour. Because it colludes with the other, the other complices we call them to create this mix or elixir, we each have our own elixir of saboteurs that are created from when we were very young. And they were created for good reason. When we were young, we needed them when we were young, we needed them to survive, and we needed them to understand the adult world. Because it's a bit weird, wacky.

Now that we're in it, we're like,

oh, unfortunately, what works for two year old does not work all that well, for 42 year olds, right. By the time you get to 52, you're kind of going, Wow, this I'm really you know, confused or not happy about the way things are going, but I don't know what to do about it. And the first thing to do is to recognize that that the, the saboteurs are not you. They sound like you, but they're not you.

So if someone becomes aware, like you said, the first key is awareness and, and like you say, they're conscious of the fact that they do have the judge or the accomplices as what would be the next step, what's the best strategy around moving through that or moving past it?

Well, I, I teach something called inner sizes. And these inner sizes are like, you know, exercises that strengthen your physical muscles. These are inner sizes that strengthen your inner what we call self command, our inner ability to gain different perspective. And so these inner sciences are things that you can do anywhere, any time. And they are, they shift the neural pathways in your brain, I don't want to get too technical. But typically, when we are presented with something in our world, we have very well worn pathways that go straight into the saboteurs area, which is the amygdala, the lower part of our brain or primal brain. Exactly the reptilian brain. And these inner sizes actually help switch and help create neural pathways to the what we call the wise yourself the prefrontal cortex, the, the part of your brain that holds the superpowers so can I share an inner science with your

your I think that would be amazing. Absolutely.

So one of the inner sizes that I love to do, because it is one of the weakest skills that I have, and some of the strongest for others, but the one of the weakest for me is actually based on sound. So what I'd love for our viewers and listeners to do right now is just take note of how you feel right now and how that your body, the sensations in your body. And just take a deep breath in because everything starts with breath. So just take a deep breath in. Now focus your hearing on the sound that is furthest out. For the stay away from your body could be a car, dog barking town clock could be absolutely anything. When you have that sound or you think you have that sound, what I invite you to do is simply move your hearing inwards towards you noticing any other sounds in the environment or the absence of sound in the environment for those who are in a nice quiet place and hear the sound that is closest to you and your song, that will be your breath. If you haven't heard your breath lately, I invite you to hear it now.

Now I invite you to notice how you feel. You notice anything different. For many, just doing that simple 10 to 15, second, inner size, helps them feel more centered, helps them feel more in the moment. And for some, you're so used to being in the past or the present and or in the future rather not in the present. Some finally, like it just feels awkward, it feels different. And that's okay, because all you've done is shift your neural pathways slightly. But that's an example of one little inner size that you can do anywhere, anytime driving, standing in the line at the grocery store. You know, anywhere you are just

it's a beautiful way to recalibrate to. Yeah. And

I know I personally experienced a shift in energy, for sure. And, you know, brought my focus in thank you for sharing that.

Yeah, these there are all sorts of different inner sizes that I that I teach clients, and that I share with clients through something called Positive Intelligence. And Positive Intelligence is actually IQ which is how smart we are or how we are smart. Plus our EQ, which is an awareness of ourselves and others, or EQ is emotional quotient. So the Intelligence plus the emotional equals the Positive Intelligence. And it allows it allows us to be in the moment, it allows us to center ourselves to gain a different perspective to strengthen our wide like I said, our wiser inner self so that we can dial down all that negative stuff, and start to use our superpowers which I love to share with people. So our superpowers which your guests might be curious about are things like exploration, innovation, the ability to navigate empathy, for yourself and for others and to take decisive action. So much of what we do is not decisive. Balancing all day long. Oh,

oh, I haven't choice. Are you? Sure.

That's how I started with freedom is choice like, gives us freedom, right. So if we can, and use it, quite often, we think, like, I love meditation, and there's meditation is awesome. But I, I'm in the middle of the grocery store, and I'm running late, and people are taking their sweet time. And I'm frustrated, and my saboteurs are going you don't have time for this. You don't have time for this. I can't whip out my mat sit on it.

Right. But you can do that inner work,

I can do an inner sighs Yeah. And my inner sizes are, like I said, they're things that you can do activities you can do in the moment, anywhere, anytime, to take back that sense of choice to give myself freedom and space to perceive like maybe, maybe my perception of you know, the people being slow in the grocery store is just because I'm in a hurry, maybe they're not being slow at all. And I dial down my saboteurs and I noticed that you know, things are moving on just fine. And and it's interesting because the more inner sizes you do, you know time we think time is a particular measurable amount of something, right? Like second or minute an hour. It's an illusion, though, because we know that sometimes when we love things time speeds up and when we hate things time slows down. So time is one of those things. It's in that you can have choice about and change your perspective

mastered. I'm curious Lorraine, what led you to this work?

What led me to this work? Well make a very long story short? My a deep question. So it's a long story. But my parents years ago, were both diagnosed with terminal illnesses at the same time. Most people, if they experienced that kind of thing, have one or one parent or another, I had both. I was a very busy educator, I was running a very chaotic, difficult school. Plus I had my own home to keep going. So at that point in time, I needed some I needed help to compartmentalize my life. So when I was with my parents, so I was 100%. there when I was at school, I was 100%. There. And when I was at home, I could rest and relax and be at home. And I met this absolutely amazing hypnotherapist, non judgmental coach hypnotherapist, and she helped me compartmentalize my life. She got me through what was the most difficult time of my life. And then afterwards, she helped me rebuild my life back together again. And I remember thinking one day when I am no longer an educator, when I'm no longer in Teaching and Educational Leadership, I want to do that for people. And that, that's why I do what I do. And it led you to your pathway. Yeah, because we all we all have challenging times, I can only guarantee you one thing, and that is that life, if your life is wonderful right now, yay. Or a day or an hour. I mean, we will all experience challenging times. And you can either look at them, like, Ah, I've got to like dig my fingernails in because you know, the next challenging time is gonna come. Or you can go, Oh, it's a gift. Yes, it's an opportunity. I have the tools I can learn from this. I'm not afraid of it anymore. You know, we've just gone through a couple of years of absolute nastiness through, you know, our society, as you know, suffered a great deal with the fears that have been stirred up and with people losing jobs and families falling apart and relationships being strained. And all that is really challenging. And if you have the right mindset, and I won't say right, because there's a judgment again, if you have a mindset and the tools to be able to perceive how it's a gift. You can first go Oh, then you go wait a minute.

Right, you can have your moments you don't get denied your moment.

You gotta have a that's the natural response. Right, have to stay in the EU. Yeah, that's stress. I do a lot of intergenerational trauma release. Because a lot of what we carry in terms of baggage is not our own. A lot of our responses to things our responses we've been trained to have.

Well, I mean, I'm sure everybody listening can recall at some point in their lives saying something and they're like, Oh, I sound just like.dot.oh

my goodness, that's, that's just like my mother, my grandmother, my great grandmother. I mean, what started my own intergenerational trauma. Exploration, quite recently was listening to something that I often said as a joke. I often said, Oh, I better get that done. Now, you never know tomorrow, I could get hit by a bus. Ha ha, ha ha, ha ha. And you know, and I meant it in kind of a funny way. And then when I started to do some poking around, I discovered that my grandfather on my dad's side was hit and killed by a double decker bus.

Interesting.

Three months before I was born.

Interesting.

And when I started to look at that situation with adult perspective, I could see how my, my, that event changed the trajectory of my whole life. We ended up in Canada instead of England. But I can track it back to that event. Yeah, so quite often, quite often, the things that we say as a joke, are actually hints about some of the baggage that we carry.

And when you became aware of that, and started shifting The conversation, the external conversation, the internal conversation around that, quote unquote, joke. But what shifted you see,

or experience a lot of release of a tremendous amount of anger. That's probably see I was a, I was in the womb then right? I experienced everything, all the emotions that my mother experienced at that time having her father in law killed by the bus, except in the womb, I had no, there was no expression I as a as a fetus, I had no way of expressing it. The other piece of that was the understanding that whether I overheard whether I got it intuitively, whatever the message was, she will save us all. And so that I found that to be overwhelming. She will save us all, I was a fetus, I have no idea how it was gonna save people. But my whole life has been about service. My whole life has been about intuiting things for others and standing as champion for others. And so that brought with it a lot of fear, a lot of anxiety, a lot of anger. I've I be, you know, the please. And appeaser is one of the saboteurs. And I'm very familiar with please and appease, as I'm sure a lot of our listeners are. And they may not be aware of where that comes from, that need for approval that need to be the champion for everyone. So I did started doing some of this intergenerational work and discovered that, how it affected me how it affected my other family members. No, and then when you understand you can start to release some of it, you can start to go, you know what, that's not mine. Yeah, I'm not carrying that anymore.

It's so interesting, when we, when we really dig into these stories these experiences is, where do they generate from? Do they serve me? Can I champion the story into something that is, you know, positive, versus working in that negative space? You know, as we finish our time together in our conversation, I would love to know if there's something that you would love to share with the audience that I maybe haven't asked you yet.

Yeah, um, I want to thank you for having me on your show. And wellness is so important. And one of the things that I offer is a show called the edge of fulfillment, because I believe we're all standing on the edge. And some of us have the courage sometimes to go just beyond the edge and into fulfillment and into that satisfaction. So one of the things that I offer to many of my clients, and my guess is something called the finding fulfilment quiz. It's the three challenges and three biggest desires. And, and the quiz helps you identify those so that you can start to move forward in your life, and start to start to focus on what it is that you truly want to do. Your purpose, your power, your passion, and your peace of mind. And that's what I talk about in the show is the four P's Peace, Power, passion and purpose. And this is one quiz that helps you get there, get some

clarity. You know, for those of you that are listening, that are curious about this or unsure, I encourage you to take this quiz. And I'll make sure that it's in the show notes so you know how to access it and and find something out you might you never know what you're going to discover. Plus to check out the show you guys I'm actually going to be interviewed on it in a few weeks. I can't wait.

Can't wait to have you along with on the show to Jenny, that'll be absolutely awesome.

We're gonna like flip, you're gonna flip the table on me?

Well, you have so much goodness to offer. I can't wait for listeners and viewers to hear all of the goodness that you offer. So yeah, and I'll send you the link to the finding fulfillment quiz, because I'm sure some of the listeners if, if they're curious. They might want to pop in there. And yeah, so

don't hesitate you guys, it will be available for you guys in the shownotes to have that as well as we'll make sure that you know how to find the rain through her website and all those kinds of things. So, you know, Lorraine, thank you so much for sharing your wisdom around, you know, generational trauma as well as saboteurs there is so many things that we can do and, and look into and sometimes it can be overwhelming on where to start, and I think that's where your quiz will become very helpful. is a beautiful tool for a lot of people to help kind of narrow in the focus. Because sometimes it can feel so overwhelming.

Yeah, and I think that that's our, our sub one of the tricks of our saboteurs. They lie to us constantly. Like I was saying our conscious mind, right? Oh, this is so complicated. Oh, this is so difficult. Oh, this is so overwhelming. No, it's not. Yeah, that's a saboteur lie.

Right? It's true.

It's actually quite simple. You know, come back to the moment do an inner sighs that brings you back into the moment and gives you better or I won't even say better, because that's a judgment, right? And a different perspective, an opportunity to take stock of what's in this moment, because this is all the is all I have is this moment. You know, anything else is passed? I can't. Well, I can change through hypnotherapy. But you know, or future, you know, all I'm anxious. I'm worried. Well, it hasn't happened yet. It's also a bit too early.

Yeah. It's a lot of energy to put out for something that you don't know the results yet.

Yeah. And and we are trained into that as little ones because we didn't control our world when we were little. And we often forget, as adults that we are, we are a choice. We have choice in the moment, which is freedom.

Well, on that note, Lorraine, thank you so much for being on the show and sharing your wisdom.

Well, thank you, Jenny. It was a it was a pleasure. And I hope that that message is landed for whoever it needs to land for.

For those of you that are listening, thank you for taking the time to not only invest in yourselves, but for sharing and being a part of this community. We are here to champion your wellness, we invite you to ignite the wellness, we're in you every single day. Don't forget you have choice to move into whatever action you need to create your own future. Thank you again, Lorraine. It was a pleasure. And we look forward to having you on another show in the future. Thanks so much. Thank you.