Brilliant Coaching Insights with Bev Aron

Welcome to This Daring Adventure podcast where we work on bridging the gap between where we are and where we want to be in order to live a bigger and bolder life. In this podcast, we will provide inspiration, tips, and skills you need to make your life the adventure you want it to be. Here's your host, mindset mentor, and life coach, Trista Guertin.

Hi everybody. Welcome. Welcome back to This Daring Adventure. I have a very special guest today. I have the brilliant, amazing coach, my coach, Bev Aron. Thank you so much, Bev, for being here today.

Thank you for having me. I'm so excited.

Well, it's an honor and I've known you now for, we've worked together for many years now, and I did. Self-Coaching Scholars with Brooke Castillo and you were instrumental, a huge part of that experience for me. And then I was a master coach, did my master certification with you, and then the deep dive coaching certification program that you offer, which was, which was such a great experience. And subsequently, just being a part of your community has had such an impact on me and I've really. Learned a great deal from you that has influenced my coaching today. And so thank you for being here and thank you for all of your love and support over the years it's been huge.

Oh, I love that. It's an honor to be here. Trita. I woke up today in such a good mood 'cause I was gonna spend some time with Trita.

Well, maybe since you know you have such an interesting story. You could share maybe how you got into coaching and how it's evolved for you and Yes. Where you are now.

Yes. Okay, sure. So, my first profession was a speech pathologist. When I, I, I grew up in South Africa and that was kind of one of the like professions that like nice girls did. And because you could do it on the side while you were raising your children. And, so I, I did speech pathology up until. I think my second child, I came to live in Canada, which is very exciting for me. And so I, I worked in and in rehab of strokes and head injury and then I needed to have a break from it because I started to find it very emotionally taxing, especially as I fell in love with my husband and I started seeing. Every head injury patient is my husband and stroke patient is my dad. And I was like, I need a break from this. And so I moved into more of the, corporate side of healthcare. I did, professional practice and I became a healthcare consultant. Did that for a while. The politics of that really upset me. It's not a good idea to go behind the scenes in healthcare and see their personalities involved. And while I was doing that, I was also raising my children. So I was always working part-time. I have four children and I remember as a speech pathologist in the hospital, I had a friend, she was a physiotherapist, and she said to me, there's this free weekend downtown, downtown Toronto, about coaching. Do you wanna come? And I was like, yeah, okay, let's go. I had no idea what it meant, and it was from one of these huge coach institutes, and I guess they do free weekends and then they enroll people in their training. And I remember the whole weekend just sitting there with. Totally dumbfounded that this was a thing and it was a career and there was a word for it beside myself, so I never signed up for that. It was like a huge institute, wasn't my vibe. She did actually, she went on and became an instructor there, and then I sort of forgot about it and I used to read the O magazine. Martha Beck, she had a column there. She was a life coach, and her column was my favorite. And I remember about 15 years ago, so I was in my mid forties, she wrote an article on weight loss, relaxing to lose weight, and she mentioned Brooke Castillo in the article. So I was on a plane. The minute I got off the plane, I looked up Brooke Castillo. She was doing a weight loss course and I signed up and this was when there was only phone conferences. So there was no zoom so long ago and as in, yeah, it was in my mid forties, mid to late forties. So I go on this course, and again, same thing, Brooke starts speaking. So it's a weight loss course, but it was really weight Coaching to lose weight. Managing your mind, managing your emotions. And again, I was, it was like, I'm home. This is, I cannot believe this is a thing. And so I just did every single thing that Brooke offered once she opened her school. I was first to sign up for the coach training and then I became an instructor with her. And, it was really only in my early fifties that I started to take having my own business. Seriously. I. Nice. And I had a lot of influences coming at me. I was very involved with Brooke from the start and watching it and, meeting these amazing people. And so I developed my business. I. I, I remember my 50th birthday, I had a group, so I had sort of started, but it really took off in my early fifties. And, now I'm 61, still doing it, still going strong. and it feels like, yeah, something that I would hope to do forever because it's, it's such a fun thing.

Okay. Okay. So did you ever imagine that you would have, 'cause you have quite a sizable business. It's been very successful. You do retreats, you do certification, you do coaching, you have business. Yeah. and then the, I don't know if the food, like the relationship with food, I mean, it's amazing. Did you ever imagine that you would create something like this

for people? No. No, I did not. In South Africa where I grew up, very, very sexist society. I, it's all the isms. when I was growing up there and, girls didn't have businesses, I remember there was a family business actually, and only my brother got invited to go to the meetings. Isn't that funny? As children and so all I wanted to do when I became a coach was make up. My speech pathology salary, which in Canada, working in the hospital system, I think I was earning like $48,000. And all I wanted to do, me and Deborah, we talked about just going over that $50,000 mark. So I really had to go through, and it was, you know, a slow, gradual process of an idea of myself as someone who could run a business, have a business, who had a business mind, who had a growth, a growth mind. It was. A complete, shift, which as it turns out, I naturally had that ability. And I guess I had grown up around, you know, entrepreneurs, but it just, yeah, it, it was, and it, I never sort of had this huge dream. I would just respond to ideas, respond to opportunities, and always be, I think I can do this. I think I'll figure it out. One of the beautiful, byproducts of that actually is in my dad's later years. He came to live in Toronto as well. He became kind of a business mentor for me, which is such a lovely, so yes, total shift in, my self concept in who I am and how people saw me and how I see myself. It's really fun.

Oh, I love that. And I've had a similar journey too, because it wasn't until I started doing this work that I really, I, I would've said. You know, seven years ago, I don't have that bone in my body. I don't have that bone. I didn't get that gene or whatever it is. It just doesn't.

Right,

right.

Yeah. Right. It's true. And you have to be careful what you read. 'cause there's books that say, listen. If you're an entrepreneur, it means you've been selling things and bring up schemes since you were a child. And so I remember reading that once and going, oh, I'm not one. Then it doesn't take into account, right, all the socialization that has you doing it or not doing it, even if you have the ideas.

Right. And 'cause there was nobody in my family, I have no point of reference at all. When I was growing up, nobody had their own business. we were teachers at St. Catherine's is a GM city, so everybody was a teacher or they were working at at gm. Yeah, that was it.

So isn't that fun? And in our midlife, right? Yes. We just gotta totally reinvent ourselves and Yeah. Yeah. From the inside out, it's so fun,

right? Yes. And that's, I am encouraging as many women as I, as I possibly can to look for those shifts and those opportunities and those possibilities, right? Like, this is what we've learned, the possibilities exist. Yes. We just need to start. Looking for them and believing that they exist. Yes. And that's why I love you

doing this podcast because we need evidence. We just need one person to go, oh. Total shift. Yes. Maybe I can.

Maybe

it's not too late for me. Yes. So I love that you're doing this,

planting that seed and the drip brainwashing that you do. Yes. Right. Exactly. Planting that idea. Okay. All right. I love it. One of the things we work together and, and I think that had the most impact on me was your deep dive certification. Hmm. And. When I did my coach certification, at the Life Coach school, we learn all these fabulous tools and concepts and skills, and when I look back at the material, of course it mentions some of the emotional processing I. It's there. Yeah. But I have to say honestly, that it wasn't until I started working with you that that really hit me in the face and made that impact not only on me personally but with the work that I do with my clients. And now that's one of the foundational pillars of my coaching program that I wanna share with as many people as possible. But maybe you could talk a little bit about that.

Yes. Brilliant. Okay. I love that you're doing it. I think it's really what makes our coaching and your coaching unique compared to, there's millions of coaches out there. Of course, everyone does it a little bit differently. Mostly the focus is on how we think. The approach for most of coaching, which is very valuable, is to work with our cognition, our language, our, the sentences we have in our brain, the thoughts we think, and to find. If we want to have a shift in how we thinking, then often the approach is, let's find what you're thinking. Let's change what you're thinking. Everything will be different, which would be true if our thinking wasn't there for a reason, our original thinking that might be holding us back. That might be having us think it's too late for me. I'm not capable. We didn't just make it up one day and then we can just like shift it out, right? As if we're changing like a different brand of, I don't know, Kleenex. It came from emotional experiences. We had all the things that anyone's thinking in their brain. We develop those repetitive thoughts usually at a time of high emotion, especially the ones that don't help us right now that are holding us back. So to try to negotiate with our brain to change it, we can do it, but it's challenging because it's kind of like saying, well, don't take that super highway. Let's go. Let's go make a new road. And our brain's like, that's really hard. Most of the time I'm just thinking on auto, so I'm not gonna remember to. Go down that road. Mm-hmm. So what I learned at a time of crisis for myself, actually, I had to learn it personally first and then realize how beautifully it goes with this. Cognitive coaching is our emotions and our nervous system. They're throughout the body. We have brains in our heart and our stomach. We have networks that you know are all over our body. And there's this idea of, Little memories and little emotions kind of stuck throughout our body. I mean, not literally, but the term I've heard from these neural nets, which I love, it's like little nets of, of nervous of brain cells. And so what we do in emotional processing is we allow our thinking brain to do what it does, and we just bypass it and we go and we find, where's that emotion? That's causing all the thoughts that hold me back. When did it, we don't even necessarily have to find out when did, did it stop? We just go find what's there and we are with it. Sometimes a memory surfaces and then we are with that sometimes idea surface. We are with that, but it's the idea that we can. Truly release and heal ourselves from the thinking that caused the thinking that's holding us back or causing us pain by being with it. Mm-hmm. And we need a guide. I think that's important to say. One of the things people ask me is, teach me how to do this. Tell me how I can do this on my own. And the thing is, unless you are familiar enough with the work or unless you, you have such a beautiful relationship with yourself, it's very hard to do. 'cause we're gonna go to some places that might feel a little uncomfortable or new or intense. And as human beings, our nervous systems, if our nervous systems aren't relaxed and calm, we need another person to be that for us. So emotional processing is a totally new thing, and so the ideas for your listeners, Trista, could perfectly lead you through this. Then once you've done it a few times with a guide, then you start to feel maybe anxious or upset or angry. Then you can go in and kind of comfort yourself, and after that, what you find is your thinking brain is changed. Because all the emotion isn't there anymore. You might remember what happened, but it doesn't bring the emotion. So now we are free to act in a way that best serves us.

Yes. And I love that because I've done that work with myself. Yeah. And it's so interesting because then you have a thought about it, like whatever the situation is or the, and the emotion doesn't come right. And it's just the most amazing situation where you're expecting it. And there's nothing.

I know.

Yeah.

Don't you clients, sometimes your clients will come, they'll tell you a story. They'll go, yeah, this happened. This happened. This happened. And, and then we are sort of remembering, oh my gosh, like six months ago this would've sent you to bed for four days. And it's not even like the client had to change it. They're just like, yeah, this is who I am now. It's just a thing that happened. It's magic.

Yeah. Yeah. and I do a process where, you know, one of the places where I like to start with my client is where some of these memories, Not, I don't wanna say like the big T traumas, right? Yeah. But some of these things that continue, yeah. To show up and have like, it could be a decision that you made. It could be a conversation, it could be a comment. Yeah. Whatever it is. And. The work that I did with myself once I learned this and mm-hmm. Felt I had a good handle on. So I had a list of things I went through that I had been thinking about since I was a child and just, systematically made my way through. And it's just like putting all the baggage down. It just, yeah. You just leave it behind. Yeah. Take what's helpful. Yeah. Reframe, think you know how you wanna tell that story, how you wanna think about it. Yeah. And then move on. And I think, yeah. for me, that's, that's where I want to start with my clients and then get them to a space where we're focused on the here and now, and then, yes. Where do they want to go?

Totally. It's always about the here and now. What's holding us back? What's gonna get us going? This is the emotional processing. I think it's the most efficient and effective way to do it. It's like we do it and then we go.

It's so great. And so one of the other things that I learned from you was this idea of just this self-compassion and kindness and how we think about ourselves. Mm-hmm. and I mentioned the story earlier of you mentioning, and I think it was in one of the, Is it the barf free business that we did and you were preparing and you just said, you know what? I am a person that does, I think it was you do things at the last minute. Yes. I don't want to put words in your mouth, but I remember that. It's the truth. And you were just like, you know what? That's the way it is. And Yeah. And you were just gonna just, it was okay. yeah. And I thought, oh. because there were certain things I was saying about myself, I should be able to do it this way or and, mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. You know what? That's the way it is. It's

okay. Yeah. Right. Because we only have so much mental energy to work on ourselves, so we have to decide. What do I wanna pay attention to that will really move the needle for me and what won't? And I remember my husband is he's one of those people that like, if he has a talk, he'll start preparing a month in advance. I go, what you doing here? Can I'm preparing my talk for next month? I'll be, whoa. And so. Somehow I thought that was the ideal. Maybe that's what they say in books or I don't know. I obviously got the idea, right? Being prepared in advance is ideal, and so I would try to be like him and I would set aside time a month before and nothing would come, and so I thought I was doing it wrong, and I thought I was causing myself so much stress by doing it. The last minute. But I realized over time, I always come through at the last minute. I always love what, what I've produced. That's when the ideas come to me, the inspiration. And I realized the stress was from telling myself it should be done by before, not by leaving it till the last minute. 'cause it always worked out. So once I started saying to myself, yeah, I should be doing it, and I would leave myself a chunk of time the day before or the, or that morning, There was no stress to it. So I think we have to be so careful about what we are listening to and what we are reading, because if we think we are wrong to do at the last minute, we are for sure gonna read books and listen to podcasts that tell us we should be doing things in advance and organize and, and ahead. And so it'll just keep reinforcing, I'm wrong, I'm wrong, I'm wrong. And then that's what makes us stressed and anxious. Right. So what we wanna do is look around. I'm so glad you brought it up. 'cause we wanna look around. If we can just find one person who's successful, who does things at the last minute, and you are that kind of person, anyone who's listening, then you have the opportunity to say, oh, this is not impeding my success at all. It's just me telling myself it's wrong. Mm-hmm. That's getting in the way.

I love that. And I've used that several times on myself and have you, my client. Yeah, absolutely. Brilliant. Yeah.

Brilliant. I think if I can, it speaks to a bigger topic of our self witness. And I love this idea. Can I talk about it for me please? Please,

yeah.

Amazing, amazing. So there's this idea, which I learned from Sarah Peyton, that we all have a self witness, which is basically the collection of all the things. We think about ourselves and we are just constantly commenting on what we are doing in the background we don't even realize. And so the two extremes are a critical self witness, which I think is most of the people listening to the podcast and that we work with, in the world, sadly. And then on the other extreme, it's called a resonance self witness, which I love this term. That's the warm, compassionate self witness. So that's like when I can't find my keys. 70th time or I'm late or I forget something. The critical self witness, we all know what that would say. Right? You should be over this by now. Oh my gosh, I can't believe you. You need to just pay attention. Ra, all the things we heard when we were small, maybe about being forgetful and all the ance self witness is, oh honey, we did that again. It's okay. We can go back and get it, or we'll just apologize or it's not a big deal. Or, there we go. This is who we're. And it's literally possible. And so I think that was one example of moving towards being a resident self witness. And the best news is we can move, our brains are flexible with the kind of work that TRI is talking about doing. That is the goal of our coaching, is to move people to a more, as you said, resident compassionate self witness that we, that's how we narrate our day's experience.

Yes. No, you're absolutely right. And I always encourage people and tell people, one of the places we have to start is really becoming aware of how we're talking to ourselves and what we're thinking about ourselves. Right. And once we have that awareness, it could be quite shocking of what's going on in our heads. Mm-hmm. And the beating yourself up, the judgment, the criticism. Yeah. All of these things and yes, moving to that really compassionate place because it has an impact on everything. Right? And it's looking at that relationship that we have with ourselves, which is another pillar of my work that mm-hmm. to build that foundation, right? Like we've heard it's. The most important relationship we'll ever have. Right? Let's build that foundation, because once you have that self-trust, self-love worth acceptance, then that's when you can start creating whatever it is you want, becoming, whoever it is that you want to become.

Mm-hmm. Right? Knowing you'll be on your own side no matter what, right? Yes. Totally. So it is shocking to find them, and I think many people don't wanna go and hear all the horrible things they're saying to themselves, but that's impacting how you feel all day, every day. so that is the first step to seeing it. It's promising to find it. 'cause it means, oh, now we've got it. Now we know what we have to do. Yes.

Once you start with the awareness, at least right then it, you can start to shift it. And one of the things in your email the other day you mentioned. one of your clients, you were at a retreat and she mentioned that going forward she was going to hold herself softly. And I think that was such a lovely thing and it just brings up this, it really is comforting and like a little cocoon or a little, blanket that you can wrap yourself in. So maybe what, tell us about that. Yes. Okay.

So I. This actually came from a woman who three days before would've never come up with that idea. And I think it's the beauty of group coaching, which I know Trista you're gonna be starting to announce and do, is that sometimes when we're in a group, the safety of coaching and the ability to open ourselves up is magnified. And so after all this expiration at the end. I was asking, what's something that you're gonna take with you? And she said to hold myself softly. And I had the same response as you, Trista. I was like, oh. And I think this is something actually that podcast listeners can start to do immediately on their own, which is just hold the question for yourself all day, every day, no matter what comes up, no matter what you do, what someone else says, what you didn't do that you said you do? Can I hold myself softly? Right now. It's just the question, what it brought up in Trista and what it brought up in me. Just the question softens us, and it could be your answer is no, because I'm whatever. I'm working on this and I'm a failure, blah, blah, blah. It's okay. But in that moment, when you ask yourself. And then you become more practiced at asking yourself, even if the answer is no, you'll keep having these little pockets of softness and comfort and soothing that you create throughout your day.

Yes, soothing. I like that. Yes, absolutely. Right?

Yes. So it's really just the question. I think that has that impact. We don't have to even worry about where we go with it.

Right. Yeah. It's just the reminder. I think I'm gonna put that on a sticky note or somewhere that I can see it regularly. Just to, yes, to cue that, trigger that for myself. Honestly.

Honestly, I should create a little image of it. Right. Yes. Everybody. Yes. Bumper

stickers.

Yes.

Seriously. Seriously, right? Yes. Well, thank you so much again for joining me today. Is there anything you're working on that you're excited about, that you're looking forward to, that you wanna share Before we close?

Yes. Well, so my most fun and exciting project is my deep dive club. Um, it was, I started at about one and a half years ago, because I wanted to make my coaching accessible to more people, at a price point that was affordable. And so we have this really fun space where there's coaching, there's learning. I'm always offering ideas that are coming to me from my coaching that make people think and always in the direction of, holding yourself softly. And so really my. It's always on my mind. What else can I offer? What else can we do? That's kind of my big, big fun, new, new-ish thing that's going on for me. Okay. Very nice. Yes. Any retreats coming

up?

Well, maybe, probably, probably winter. I have some events in June, as you know, in Toronto, although those aren't, it's not so much a retreat as three separate events for different members of my communities, but probably I'm thinking, Winter. I like to get away from Toronto for the summer. So maybe, but I'm actually thinking fall 'cause a lot of people are asking me for east coast retreats. And of course it gets cold. Yeah. So maybe sort of late summer, early fall, I'll do something on the East Coast and then for sure in winter, Florida or California for me mostly.

Right.

Yes.

Okay. All right. Well, it's my dream. One of these days I'll be attending your, it's been on my list of things to do for a while, so. I would adore it. Okay. I would adore it. Soon, someday. All right. Well thank you so much, Bev. Again, it's been a pleasure. I appreciate your time and your insight and all the work that you do. Really, it has an impact on me and I am excited to share everything I've learned from you with my clients. So thank you. Thank you. It was an honor having you in my community

and so fun to be here with you today. Thanks for having me. Trista.

Thank you for listening to This Daring Adventure podcast with your host Trista Guertin. We hope you enjoyed the tips and conversations on how to get excited about life Again, as always, you can head to tristaguertin.com for additional resources and to book a one-on-one coaching session. You can also follow Trista on Instagram at tristavguertin. Don't forget to subscribe, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts. Thanks again for tuning in and we'll see you next time.