Episode Transcript
<p><!--block-->Alara (00:01.535)<br>One more thing, JJ, before we start. Have you used Riverside before? Okay.<br><br>Hello, hello and welcome to another episode of the ecstatic woman podcast where we activate and inspire women and their power in their authenticity and in their bliss. I'm your host, a Laura Sage and perhaps, you know, you've noticed in the spiritual community and just honestly, it's becoming quite popular. The, the notion of spiritual coaching, mentoring, mindfulness. What is the difference between this and talk therapy and really<br><br>How is mentorship coaching perhaps, dare I say, better than talk therapy, traditional therapy methods? We're going to dive into this topic today with our wonderful guest, JJ Flazzanis is an empowerment strategist and creator of the Empowering Minds Network. JJ works with conscious spiritual truth seekers, which is pretty much this entire audience.<br><br>who want to remove emotional blocks to success. JJ, thank you so much for being here with us today.<br><br>JJ Flizanes (01:11.986)<br>Thanks, Laura. I'm excited to be here and have this conversation and hopefully people can walk away. Well, I know that well I have plenty of tools that they can walk away with today and improve their life instantaneously.<br><br>Alara (01:23.199)<br>I love that. I love that so much. So let's get into it. What is the difference between coaching mentorship and the context that we're speaking to it up here and traditional talk therapy?<br><br>JJ Flizanes (01:39.44)<br>So, while I know today we have a decent amount of time to kind of go through this, and I definitely want to, again, I'm going to give you guys some tools. I do want to let you know upfront that I do have a 90 -minute presentation on this on my website that's free that anyone can download and watch, or not download, you just have access to it to watch. So in case I don't cover everything, because there's more than we're going to be able to get to. Even if I try to squeeze it all into 45 minutes, it's not going to happen. So, so...<br><br>Can I tell you first how I, because it isn't as cut and dry as like how is it different? Because there are multiple levels of why it's different. If I could share sort of how I got to the place to claim why, like, okay. As a Pisces with a lot of Sag, a lot of truth seeker and a lot of emotional intuition, psychic abilities and.<br><br>Alara (02:16.255)<br>Absolutely.<br><br>JJ Flizanes (02:27.283)<br>empathic and empathetic and curious my whole life asking questions about why I react to something and why that person reacted the way they did and why do I feel the way that I do. Just from that, like as far back as I can remember and I would tell you that I was probably as a child and even in junior high I would have claimed I'm a very good communicator. I'll tell you exactly why you upset me and how to never do that again.<br><br>Alara (02:50.975)<br>Hahaha!<br><br>JJ Flizanes (02:51.855)<br>And of course, what I realized later in life like that was also Queen victim. I'm like, OK, because that's the that's the paradigm that's out there. The paradigm is, is it some if you have hurt feelings, it must be somebody else's fault. Somebody did something to me. And that is victim mentality. And I didn't know that until around 2001, 2002. And when I finally got that, that was a game changer. That just sort of turned everything around. And when I started my podcast in<br><br>Alara (02:56.031)<br>Hmm.<br><br>JJ Flizanes (03:19.758)<br>It's almost 10 years. I'm going to be having a party. I don't know what I'm doing yet. But yesterday, I'm like, I have to do something in September to have this 10 year one decade. But when I started the show, it had two purposes. The first show, the first purpose was for me to test out what the universe wanted me to talk about. I have a lot of content in different areas of health and wellness and nutrition, alternative medicine, relationships. So a lot of attraction.<br><br>And I thought, okay, there's a lot of stuff here. What do you want from me? Where am I supposed to show up? And so it was a test. But it also became a way for me to learn new things and to also communicate sort of sneakily to my husband at the time, how, because he's of course not gonna listen to me. So I really kind of started the show to save my marriage. And in that I was learning, I was growing, I was changing, I was applying the tools that I was learning to my life and...<br><br>I had been doing that as a personal trainer for a long time with law of attraction, but my clients didn't have any interest in that because they wanted health and wellness and weight loss and getting stronger and looking better. And I got bored with that very quickly because I'm like underneath the hood, as we all know, is your feelings and emotions, which drive everything. So fast forward after doing all this work, becoming an empowerment strategist, having people from my show sign up for two sessions and then come out saying,<br><br>Wow, my whole life has changed. This has been amazing. I've never felt so good. And I've been in therapy for seven years, 10 years, three years, five years. And the whole while, and there's more details than that, but it's a very long story. So I'm going to make it short. All the things I was learning and I was teaching to people who were seeking it out and it was working, I saw the evidence of that. And I had had been in therapy with my ex -husband or...<br><br>I tried therapy in different ways. And again, if you're listening to this and you have a therapist and you love your therapist and you are different, listen up, you are different in the same situation, then your therapist is doing a great job and you are doing great work. But if you are someone who gets told to avoid things or quit your job, get a divorce, change your friends because they're not making you happy, okay, this is where...<br><br>JJ Flizanes (05:26.51)<br>traditional and when I say traditional because there's many, many therapists and there's many coaches, there's as many bad coaches as are bad therapists, right? So it's really about the trust. And I'll say a couple of the points as I made this webinar, as I made this masterclass called Three Reasons Why Tuck Therapy Is Ineffective. I made it for the people who I was attracting, who had been in traditional tuck therapy, who listened to the show and thought, yeah, there's more here. There's something, there's another level of feeling better or having what I want that I don't think I'm getting here.<br><br>Alara (05:31.071)<br>Absolutely. Yes.<br><br>JJ Flizanes (05:56.046)<br>And so they saw it out. And then when they got it, I was like, okay, that's an example of it working. That's an example of it working. That's an example of it working. And so I took, you know, I'm not a therapist, but I'm highly intuitive, but forget the intuitive piece. Anyone can learn these tools. Anyone can learn and research and become more mindful and understand your emotions and your body and the physiology and the psychology. Anyone can learn that and...<br><br>How many of you go when you pick out a therapist, do you know anything about what they've overcome? You don't. You hire them because they have a degree and they're close to you and they're on your insurance. But have they acted differently in the same situation? Have they proven themselves to you to be someone who has grown? Every time I do a live event, which at this point every two years, but I might be going every year, my audience comes into the room and I say, okay, raise your hands if you've seen me grow since the last time. And all hands go up. I don't teach anything I don't use.<br><br>But because I'm in the growth path, because I'm aware and I love it and I love removing blocks for people and myself and continuing to allow in more year after year, I could prove myself without trying because I'm just living my life and sharing it with others. But we don't actually choose therapists based on if they do any better in the situation than you do, right? So I mean, that's something I didn't think about when I recorded that and when I created that masterclass years ago, but it's a big one.<br><br>because I have seen, I used to network a lot for my business. I'm sure you probably in the past have done that too, where, you know, in small groups of people in your local area and as a personal trainer and I would meet a lot of therapists, but I would see them, you know, sometimes act like children or like, I would see their triggers and their core wounds. I'm like, aren't you a therapist? Shouldn't you be handling that better? Like that was what I had in my mind. So, you know, so that's just a little, a start of, you know, one of the reasons why I think<br><br>It's a crap shoot when you're choosing a therapist because they're traditionally traditional therapists are not supposed to share with you about their lives. They're not supposed to. They're supposed to keep it separate. And that is safe for them to not get entangled and to not have, you know, inappropriate relationships and for legal reasons. I get it. But it doesn't help you the person understand if the person that you're with could actually do it any better than you're doing it. So I think there's something to be said about earning someone's know, like and trust before you work with them.<br><br>Alara (07:56.319)<br>Right.<br><br>Alara (08:17.535)<br>Yeah. And I love this conversation because it's really speaking to walking the talk, right? I remember many years ago, I read something about a man who was doing all these self -help events and he was big. And then he realized like he started having back problems. He started having all these issues in his life. And he realized that he wasn't doing any of the things that he was promoting, suggesting and teaching.<br><br>And I think this is so important that the people that we're seeking really is it's advice, yes, mentorship, yes, coaching, but also the reflection, also the space holding. Somebody be able to hold a vibration for us while we're working through things that they are holding a high mark, that they are saying, yes, I've.<br><br>Maybe not been through your exact circumstances, but I've been through similar or I've been through a lot and these are the tools I used and this is how I did it. And now I'm at this point in my life. And not only is that, you know, inspirational, right? Because it really is when we see somebody that has moved through something and another thing and another thing, and they're, they're really improving. Like you said, there's growth there. You can see, like you can actually see it in, in how they look.<br><br>Right? Like their actual physical structures change. Their life changes. You watch them grow exponentially. And that's very inspirational. But then also, again, there is on the energetic side of things, there's an actual energetic container to all of this and the reflection. So when we're working with a mentor or coach who is constantly expanding themselves, bringing in higher states of consciousness, embodying more of their higher self,<br><br>they are resonating at a higher level and that absolutely affects the client directly. Like this is what happens when I'm sure you've had this my love, people enter your container and it's like they immediately have transformation. They haven't even done any of the work yet. That's just through vibrational dissonance.<br><br>JJ Flizanes (10:26.478)<br>Absolutely. And as someone who's been teaching law of attraction for 10 years, more than 10 years, because the podcast I was teaching before then and studying Abraham Hicks since 2001 when like my whole life was changed. I was like, my God, I need to know more. I need to understand. And it is that it is that then when you have and there are some coaches even that are trained to not give you advice, which is ludicrous to me, because they're to help you.<br><br>figure out the answers inside, which I get, and I've had coaches who have done that for me, and that's been very helpful, and I'm gonna add to that, sometimes, or a lot of the times, based on your frequency, based on your upper limits, based on how much love, joy, success, and abundance you allow in, when you want to go to the next level, you can't see that. You can't see where you are in relationship to where you wanna be because you're at that level, you're at that frequency of this is how much love, joy, success, abundance I allow in.<br><br>I don't know what it looks like there because I'm not there yet. But someone else at a higher frequency can see more for you than you can see for yourself and can see the upper limits and can see the core wounds and can see the patterns that you are consumed with because you can't, most people are not very good at being observers of their own life. They can't stand back and take a look at that. That's a skill you develop by asking the right questions.<br><br>So again, not to throw all therapy under the bus, because some coaches aren't supposed to give you any advice. And I'm like, well, that's dumb. Because if somebody has if someone has life experience or see something in you that you don't see in yourself. Now, of course, I think it's it's important to balance both like the positive things. And that's not going to be hard for a coach, actually, sometimes because sometimes you see you see more for people. I see more for people than they see for themselves. And sometimes they don't want to do the work.<br><br>Alara (11:56.159)<br>Hahaha!<br><br>JJ Flizanes (12:17.006)<br>to get to the level that I see as possible for them. And that's fine. I have to, as a coach, I had to learn how to accept that and had to work on my own wounds around that and not take that personally by any means. And that's growth in itself. And then there are some people who your version of them, your vision of them, in fact, one of my listeners who had reached out, she was in her young 20s, mom of four now. And she, I asked her, Pennsylvania, I'm in California, she listens to the podcast. I said, so why did you sign up? And she said, because in my life, I don't think I know anybody that's happy.<br><br>and you seem authentically like a happy person. So if I want to be happy, I'm going to search someone who's happy. I'm going to model what you're doing because it seems to be working for you.<br><br>Alara (12:48.959)<br>Interesting.<br><br>Yes. Yes. Yes.<br><br>Alara (12:58.783)<br>or at least receive your insights. And again, your awareness. I love how you bring up self observation, right? Because you're right. I also agree that a lot of people don't have good self observation, but even, you know, for all of us who do, we are still, there are still blind spots. There are still things that we cannot see. You know, I, for one, I'm always hiring mentors. My mentors hire mentors, coaches, right? Like the whole point of it is to have somebody help you and<br><br>JJ Flizanes (13:16.186)<br>Mm -hmm.<br><br>Alara (13:28.351)<br>I always bring in like Michael Jordan in these kinds of conversations because you know, you can be an extraordinary, like top tier, elite, epic basketball player. However, you still have a coach, right? You still have somebody who is watching quote unquote from the sidelines to assist you to see things that you can't see and to improve. And I feel like top talk therapy. And again, this is a total generalization, but we are generalizing here for the most part.<br><br>Talk therapy is a more of just, well, talk, talk it out. Tell me all your sorrows and woes. I'll listen. And you know, that's, that's the majority of the therapy right there, which actually can just keep us very stuck in a cycle of, like you said, victim mentality instead of how can I see that differently? How can I extract the wisdom?<br><br>of that experience rather than the woe is me and the pain and only the emotional trauma.<br><br>JJ Flizanes (14:28.825)<br>Absolutely. That's again another one of the factors in traditional talk therapy. And I even went to somebody once specifically because she did EMDR. And what I didn't know at the time is I could do even more effective EFT. So but I had to go learn firsthand. So I went to her for EMDR and which is called which is eye movement desensitizing reestablishment. It's a trauma therapy, although everybody can benefit from it. And again, like I said, EMDR and EFT. EFT is self administered EMDR, but there are effective and more effective ways to do that, too. It's not as<br><br>surfaces some people like to make it. But anyway, that's a whole other conversation. But I talk a lot. I've talked about that on the show a couple of times. So when it comes to the traditional talk therapy piece, it's like I went to this woman for EMDR only because I couldn't do it for myself because I didn't know because that's a therapy that you do need to work with somebody else. There's a couple of different applications of how to do it. And you need another person and she wouldn't do it.<br><br>Like for, I know I went for six sessions and we did it twice. It took me every time to keep asking, can we please do it? Can we please do it? Because she'd asked me a question about what was going on with me. And of course, you know, I was having issues with my husband at the time. So I was talking about that. And then 50 minutes later, we're finishing up and I'm thinking, why didn't we do EMDR?<br><br>And she said, because you want to tell me what happened yesterday. I'm like, because that's what you asked me. Like, it's your room. You're supposed to be guiding me. You're supposed to be leading me. She was extremely right brain. She didn't have very much left brain at all. And while she did validate some things, there wasn't a lot of action and there wasn't a lot of like me taking responsibility, although I was already taking responsibility. So there was no reflection back to how I created this or my point of view or<br><br>Alara (15:46.271)<br>Yeah.<br><br>JJ Flizanes (16:07.561)<br>reinterpreting things from anybody else's point of view. But I was really good and I am really good at that. I've never been that person. But so many people go into therapy because they feel badly. They get the therapist to validate them and say, that must be really hard for you. They feel validated and they get addicted to feeling validated. So they go back every time to do the sob story to get validated and be told that it must be really hard for them. I really acknowledge your feelings and my gosh, I'm so sorry for you. And they feed on that.<br><br>Alara (16:19.231)<br>Yes.<br><br>JJ Flizanes (16:36.153)<br>and then they never get out of it and nothing seems to change. I had an ex boyfriend, gay. my God, this was in New York. And it took me a minute to understand, to get that he was gay, but he wasn't out. And, well, I was 20, I was 25, I was 24. And I'm dating this guy. And again, I'm learning. So I'm thinking, this relationship's different. I don't feel that sexual attraction. He's very judgy.<br><br>Alara (16:48.639)<br>It took you a minute.<br><br>JJ Flizanes (17:05.849)<br>He's very I know I know he spends too much time in the bathroom. He's more hair products than me anyway I figured he was a dancer. He was a personal trainer. He lived in New York City if he was gay Why isn't he out like it didn't make any sense to me? So I just kind of went with all his effeminate things and and yeah He didn't like what I had to say when I figured it out, and I was like you're gay I was like that it makes perfect sense, but he'd been in therapy for ten years<br><br>Alara (17:30.467)<br>Yeah.<br><br>JJ Flizanes (17:30.905)<br>Now it was really unsafe for him to come out because his brother who was a cop beat him almost to death with the fear that he was gay. So I didn't understand until I asked the right questions and I thought about it. But, you know, when I kind of called him out, I'm like, we've been in therapy for like seven or 10 years. Like, what are you doing in there? Like, shit, you're so angry because you're not being true to yourself. You are living a lie.<br><br>Alara (17:36.159)<br>Hmm.<br><br>Alara (17:52.287)<br>Yeah.<br><br>JJ Flizanes (17:54.457)<br>Isn't it time for you to be who you are? But again, because of the fear of death, of being beaten, of disappointing his parents, his Catholic parents, so many different things came into into play there. But it was my first time that I thought, I don't care how long you've been in therapy. Are you different? Do you feel better? Do you act differently? Do you are you different? So that story, my quote to JJ Quote is healing is when you're different in the same situation. Because a lot of my clients in the past as a personal trainer,<br><br>Alara (18:09.439)<br>Yes.<br><br>Alara (18:19.999)<br>Hmm.<br><br>JJ Flizanes (18:23.385)<br>And as a podcast coach, not necessarily as a coach, as a podcast business coach, I would have a lot of therapists and I'd just see the spinning that they would do. And I would also see how they would work with their clients. And I would see that sometimes it was about replacing habits, not healing the wound that created the habit in the first place. And that's when I got frustrated enough to say, this is not healing. Because then you are subject to, all right, so you're an overeater, you're an emotional eater.<br><br>Don't go to the buffet. Don't go to the party. Eat before you go. Stay away from the table. I'm like, okay, that's not healing. But that's what people do. Their therapist says, you can't do this. And there's an anyway. So that's one of my beefs about like if I don't care what it is, therapy, coaching, your church, if it's not changing you, it's not working.<br><br>Alara (18:51.295)<br>Yes, yes, no.<br><br>Alara (19:08.223)<br>Yes, yes. And I love what you're saying about, you know, actions, but they're just replacing something with another thing that isn't isn't really getting to the core. I think that's called coping mechanism in the therapy world. I could be totally wrong, but I had somebody bring that terminology to my awareness and I thought, how interesting. Like, I don't want to cope with life. I mean, regardless of whether I understand the full definition of that verbiage, I do not want to cope with my life.<br><br>I do not want to have mechanisms that are coping with my trauma, with my limiting beliefs, with my challenges. I want to learn how to move through them powerfully, how to shift the energy, how to restructure my energetics, my perception. That to me is powerful. Coping feels like putting a band -aid on something that is festering. And you're just kind of like, well,<br><br>It looks better. It looks better. If we put a bandaid over it, it looks better. No, it's still festering under there, which is just what you were saying about. Yeah, avoid the dessert table. Don't bring that stuff into your home. Fantastic. But you'll just find another way to bring whatever that trauma is into your life. You'll just find another avenue because we need to. We need to see it.<br><br>So unless we are willing to look at it, we're going to continue to bring it out into our physical reality, continue to create it literally into our physical reality until we can go, wait a second. I'm trying to learn from this. I'm trying to grow. I'm trying to change.<br><br>JJ Flizanes (20:44.153)<br>I want to share my favorite word. I don't get to use it very often, but I'm sure you and your audience will enjoy this word. It's transmute. You get to transmute your pain into joy, into you get to leverage, you get to pivot, you get to take all that wonderful momentum of negative energy and get to explode it like an orgasm into positive energy. Like there's nothing better than taking it and transmuting what you struggle with and all of that energy that you're not doing anything with. It's not about pushing it down. It's about transmuting it.<br><br>Alara (20:50.943)<br>Yes. Yes.<br><br>Alara (21:15.231)<br>Exactly. And you know, when you transmute it, you're able to really see the circumstance, the experience, the pain, all of it. I mean, for one, from my experience, immense gratitude, like the amount of gratitude that I have for my past trauma is incredible. And simultaneously, you really extract the wisdom.<br><br>Your subconscious mind now becomes, quote unquote, more intelligent from that wisdom that you take, rather than like, let's just sweep it under the rug. Now not only are we not really addressing it, but we're not learning from it either, which is part of the transmutation.<br><br>JJ Flizanes (21:52.057)<br>Right. One of the exercises that I'd love to share with you and your audience, if willing, and this is something, regardless of whether in therapy or coaching or none of the above, but it's something that, again, it's a tool. You know, what I, again, and it...<br><br>I put out what is interesting to me, I share what works for me, and then I attracted an audience of people who are like, my God, this is changing my life. So I know that it's working for people. This isn't me saying this is the only thing. It's if you resonate with it. I love giving people tools so they don't have to depend on somebody else trying to figure it out for them. Because that's how I'm structured as an empowerment strategist is to empower you, is to let you know that you get to, I was asked one of my clients how to summit this week, actually yesterday.<br><br>And all day and her it was called the paths to inner peace. And, you know, she asked all of her speakers, what's your definition of if inner peace? And I said the knowing that I can handle anything that comes along and that knowing comes from having the tools to figure it out, the tools to overcome whatever is in your way.<br><br>or whatever growth opportunity you have in front of you. It's not in your way, but we tend to think that obstacles in contrast equals bad. It's like, no, it equals clarity, which it's just something that's growing us. So this tool comes originally from the work of Dr. Marshall Rosenberg, who wrote Nonviolent Communication. If you've taken any classes or read the book, I'm going to present it in an opposite way that is presented. Not because I think what he does is ineffective or wrong. It's because I think it takes a specific kind of person to take it in that way, the original way.<br><br>I flip it. I flip it because I want to take responsibility for me being aware of these things, of these tools. And I think it also helps people. I've been trying to help a family member right now, help another family member feel better because they just spin and they spiral and they get mad and they, you know, but nobody has any tools to make it any better. So first, is it okay if I share this right now? Okay, so first I'm going to say that if you have a negative emotion, always, it means that besides being out of alignment,<br><br>Alara (23:44.031)<br>Absolutely.<br><br>JJ Flizanes (23:52.289)<br>It means that you have a need that's not being met or the perception of a need that's not being met. So anyone who's listening on the podcast, I just did air quotes. Perception of a need not being met because sometimes you are getting love that you want. You're just not getting it in the way that you want it, AKA love languages. Someone's doing acts of service for you, but your love language is words and they don't give you words and you feel like you're not loved, but you are getting love. You're just not able to receive it because you're expecting it in a different form.<br><br>So again, it's either a need is not being met or the perception of need is not being met. So it's a three step process. And the first step is to when you don't feel good and you've had something trigger you in some way, shape or form, no matter what the degree of intensity is. Now, if it's super intense and you need to let your feelings out, of course, that's always the first thing. If you want to cry, if you need to cry, cry. If you need to scream, scream. Do not repress that emotion, that energy that's coming up forth, like allow it to be. After it dissipates and you come down a little bit,<br><br>It's time to look at what happened in terms of why did I feel that way? What happened? What need is not being met? What is the perception of the need? So the first step is to, and I have a free download people can get. It's called, well, it's the whole thing. It's the questions and it's the feelings and the needs list. So there are a hundred different feeling words on this list. A hundred.<br><br>Most people could probably only identify about five. If I asked you how many feelings are there, you would probably be able to identify more, but the average person's probably gonna be able to identify five or six. They're not gonna go into detail. And the reason why there's so many is because under the category of mad, there's a very distinct, well, there's a distinct difference vibrationally and intensity wise about if I'm irritated or if I'm enraged. Those are two very different forms of angry or mad.<br><br>Alara (25:27.583)<br>Mm -hmm.<br><br>Alara (25:33.151)<br>Yes.<br><br>JJ Flizanes (25:37.406)<br>and they're going to need different things when you get to the problem solving piece of this. So, and they're gonna need different energy to allow them to process them. So, I invite people to step number one is to identify how you feel. And if you're someone who, and I'm guessing your audience probably isn't, but everybody struggles a little bit from time to time about being too much in their head, if we wanna bring our awareness and reconnect our brain to our body so our body can tell us what's going on instead of trying to rely on your brain, which is not your intuition,<br><br>look at the feelings list and pick out one or two feelings that are that's when you look at it, when you say it, when you think about it, you feel a physical sensation and you can identify where that is in your body. So once you get here's how I'm feeling, you you fine tune, not just I'm angry, I'm sad, I'm happy. You fine tune how my feeling. Then the second question is what need is not being met that's creating this feeling. Now, most of us do not have a vocabulary of needs. You we we interpret it as needy, dependent, weak.<br><br>That's not what I mean. On this list are 86 basic human needs. Everything on this list is something in your human experience, whether you're conscious of it or not, you search for, you want. You need to have a happy, peaceful, fulfilling life. And sometimes not getting these nets create these negative feelings. So out of the 86 basic human needs, you then ask what need is not being met and...<br><br>Again, this is why everyone will be good to download and print many, many copies of this, because I promise you just don't have a language for this. You haven't been taught this. You don't think like this. But we subconsciously will manipulate other people to get our needs met and not be aware of what that is. Imagine the power. Imagine the freedom of knowing that you can get your need met and you don't have to have anybody else do anything. It's very freeing. So.<br><br>Alara (27:07.743)<br>You<br><br>JJ Flizanes (27:27.963)<br>So that's the second step. And I'll tell you, this is a very simple exercise, but it is the hardest exercise I ever teach. I teach core wounds. We do love language. We do all the things, but we come back to that people have because it's a habit you have to develop in terms of your consciousness and that observation piece of you. So we go to the needs. So I'll just read a couple of the needs so you guys can understand. So under like so we all need excitement, fun, play, humor, peace, beauty, flow, harmony.<br><br>companionship, aliveness, freedom, celebration, clarity. So those are some of the words on this list. Then step number three, once you figure out the need that's not being met, which by the way, that in itself would be like a, my God, that's the need. All right. I promise when you do this enough, the need by itself will produce clarity and awareness and relief. But then we get to step three, step three, and this is the most important piece. What strategies, more than one, what strategies,<br><br>can I take to get the need met? And here's the most important part of this sentence, that do not require anyone else to be different. Because too often we say, well, my job this, my boss is, my husband is, my wife is, the government this, politics this, the television this, the government, whatever. No, that's victim mentality. That's deciding that they have power over you. And that's a belief that people have, but I'm here to tell you they don't. You give it to them.<br><br>Alara (28:40.223)<br>Yes.<br><br>JJ Flizanes (28:55.064)<br>because you've been taught to give it to them. You see other people give it to them, but there is another way. And if you choose victim mentality because it's what you know and you're happy there, cool. Just know you're never gonna feel good. It's not a long lasting feeling of empowerment, relief, freedom, joy and love because you're always dependent, literally, on circumstances and other people to keep you there. It is not an empowering position. So again, just running through real quickly, feeling, what am I feeling?<br><br>Step number two, what need is not being met that's creating this feeling? And step number three, what strategies can I take to get the need met that do not require anyone else to be different? And the last thing I'll say about that is it doesn't mean that you're not gonna ask for help or assistance at times because companionship literally is with another person. It just means you can't make your husband or wife or your mother or father or your spouse, your brother or your whoever. Companionship means enjoying space and time with a person, so.<br><br>You make a date on your calendar if you're leveling with just quality time. You go through your friend list or your family list and think who lights me up? Who gives me energy? Who do I really want to spend time with? And you make a date on a regular basis with different people to create some companionship. But you cannot ask one person, even your spouse, that they have to be the person who's with you all the time because it's your job to get that need met. It's not theirs. They may not want what you want. And I believe and I know that it's always possible for people to have a win -win situation.<br><br>I can get what I want and you can get what you want. We should have to figure out what that is, what that really is and not what my story is around it. So hopefully that'll be helpful and everybody will use it. And the last exercise you can do with this is if you don't know, if you just have a general icky feeling and you don't, maybe you're a little depressed or a little anxious and you don't know what it is, you don't need to wait until you're having a trigger moment. Just go to the needs list and start circling all of the needs that you aren't currently getting met.<br><br>that you want to get met and that'll be at least a place to start in terms of what can I do to be happier? cool, I can get these needs met and I'll be happier.<br><br>Alara (30:58.655)<br>Yeah, beautiful. I love that so much. And you know, it's so important that we're rewriting humanity out of victim mentality, because even like victims even get triggered by calling it victim mentality. It's it's pretty funny. And simultaneously, when we are really saying I'm responsible, right, I'm responsible for how I feel, I'm responsible for literally everything in my life for the most part of creating my reality. It shifts that. And initially, sometimes that can be a hard pill to swallow.<br><br>Like if somebody is stuck in victim mentality, and sometimes people are, they're aware and open in some areas of their life, but they're stuck in victim mentality in other areas of their life. Like I see it a lot with like, well, I'm good at, you know, I'm handling my emotions, but then I go to work and there's all these people that I have no control over and they just give their power away. And so initially that pill can be quite hard to swallow. Sometimes people would be like, I have the power in every single circumstance.<br><br>But, and once we swallow that pill, it changes our life, right? Because now we are really in control and in power, really. I work with my boys on this. My boys are 9 and 11, and it's so interesting. And I do co -parent with my ex -husband with them. So I'm not the complete 100 % influence. And they also have school and all of the other influences in their life. And it's just so interesting how at this age, they're really in this, I call it the blame game, right?<br><br>So and so did this, you know, Monty did this. Well, Willie did this. And I'm always just stop right there. Like you're just giving your power away to your brother. Now he's, he's got full power over. You're giving it to him, you know, like making them aware. Like you don't have to play this game. Yes. I, I know that's what you see other kids do. Maybe that's what you see a lot of adults do. You don't have to do that. Just that simple knowing they're learning. I'm, I'm already on programming them, but already it shifts them already. They pause just that moment of pause and really<br><br>Basically what you're teaching there of tuning into how am I feeling and what's really going on? Here and how can I change that we stop the blame game?<br><br>JJ Flizanes (33:06.64)<br>Well, it'd be interesting for you to maybe even pull out the feelings and needs list and start asking what is it that you need? Because then you'll further teach them, because the feelings are important for sure, and that can dissipate anybody's struggle to just acknowledge their feelings. But the feelings will keep happening if their needs aren't getting met. Like the needs are the next step.<br><br>to understanding why they're feeling the way they're feeling. That it's not just a feeling comes over me like air. all of a sudden I'm upset or I'm in the situation. And because it does look like we, that's why it makes sense to us because we could be going around our day and the next thing somebody says something or does something and I'm feeling fine, but then they do something else and I feel bad. So of course I'm going to go, it makes sense. It must be your fault because I was feeling fine. You did this thing and now I don't feel fine. But what we're not understanding is again, that subconscious part of it's about a need.<br><br>So when we understand the need, we can get it met and then we can let that person off the hook and we can get our need met and we can feel better and then it doesn't have to happen again. And the faster we become in identifying those things, the faster we have better boundaries, the faster we're able to communicate our needs to other people in a way that's not demanding or blaming. And, you know, because I had a girlfriend years ago who created, I think, I forget what they were called, but they were...<br><br>they were like emotional blocks, like they were for her kids, like she trained her kids, she made these, they're somewhere in my house, I moved three years ago, but I know they're here, because I would never have thrown them away, but they're these beautiful, like soft blocks that have all the feeling words on them that she made for her kids.<br><br>I'm like, yeah, that's great to identify their feelings. I said, and now we need to make a block, need one, because because the second step is not only are we identifying the feelings, we want to be able to problem solve the situation that upset them in the first place. And now they're really empowered to not have to feel victimized to feeling upset all the time by other people's behavior without understanding what it is. And maybe it's too advanced for children, but I don't think it is. I think this feels really simple in terms of needs and asking people. I shared this with a family member.<br><br>JJ Flizanes (35:00.303)<br>today or yesterday. And I said, you know, because that the other family members in therapy. And I said, just just ask them. You don't have to therapy them. Just say, hey, I'm trying to help you out. It sounds like so the way this is originally taught by Marshall Rosenberg is that you're supposed to listen and be reflecting. So if you were to say something or, you know, I'd say, it sounds like you feel annoyed right now. And is that because you have a need for?<br><br>Alara (35:25.375)<br>Mmm.<br><br>JJ Flizanes (35:25.55)<br>closeness or connection and it's the reflecting back and that's how it's taught originally which is awesome to be able to do but I think too many people get triggered by their own stuff that they can't be that present for somebody they can't identify it for themselves I feel like we have to be able to learn how to do it for ourselves before we can do it for somebody else right<br><br>Alara (35:30.111)<br>Interesting.<br><br>Alara (35:34.943)<br>Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.<br><br>Alara (35:42.495)<br>Yeah, I totally agree. And I don't believe that many people are really able to feel somebody empathy from a place of clarity, right? They're still seeing it from their own personal belief structures and wounds, and like you said, triggers in the moment. So they're receiving it through their filters. And then they're projecting, well, I think that you need, I feel that you need, but really...<br><br>I think the way that you're doing it where it's really that self -reflection, that self -awareness, not only empowers people to do it first and foremost for themselves, but actually makes them a clearer container to be able to support other people through the process if they so desire. And yeah, I'm curious, have you ever taken this to talk a therapist or anything along those lines and presented it to them?<br><br>JJ Flizanes (36:33.576)<br>know, I mean, I do have therapists that listen to my show, I had done a which was actually really interesting. Because I my growth in being able to put myself out there and talk about this. And then of course, get the first negative feedback, jay, just on a therapist, and then and then to heal that wound, which is great. I'm like, now I hear and I go exactly and thank God. So so but at first it was it was a fear because my ex husband put that in my mind because he basically shut me down. So you're not qualified to say that.<br><br>And I also knew that that was coming out of a place of if he was to acknowledge that what I said made sense, he'd have to be responsible for the things that I was pointing out. So, of course, it's a way to deflect that and put me down so that way you can't you don't need to accept your responsibility for your stuff. And I understood that. But doesn't mean that when someone tells you that enough, it doesn't seep into your subconscious and you have a doubt or a belief about yourself or a fear. So when I came out of that.<br><br>you know, I was better for it and I am better for it, all of it. And I know my place and I know what I do and I am OK with whatever. Everybody, everyone isn't for everybody. I'm not for everybody. So when we come to, you know, my event earlier this year, I had done a live event called Awaking Your Dream Life and I did it also virtually and I did it virtually in January.<br><br>Alara (37:33.183)<br>Absolutely, yeah.<br><br>JJ Flizanes (37:43.048)<br>of this year, 2024. And I had someone to listen to my show and she's a therapist. I'll tell you, the trigger happened when she first said, I'm a therapist. I thought, God, what is she saying? And of course, hello, she had to pay to be here. I'm like, she bought a ticket. I like that all went out of my brain. I totally forgot that she paid to be here. So she, you know, but I had this fear, this initial instinct of like, my God, what's she going to say? And she, she, she pulled out a book.<br><br>Alara (37:50.815)<br>Hmm.<br><br>JJ Flizanes (38:07.144)<br>She had a box, she had a JJ box. She said, I have changed the way I do therapy after finding your show. She had this whole box of note cards that are things I've said that she keeps in front of her and she had a whole notebook of stuff and I was like, I cried. I was like, that's the best compliment ever. So I like tools. Whether your therapist gives you tools, great, or your coach gives you tools, great, but get some tools because you wouldn't build a house with a hammer. You need more tools.<br><br>Alara (38:11.103)<br>Beautiful.<br><br>Alara (38:19.583)<br>That's beautiful.<br><br>Alara (38:27.103)<br>Mm -hmm.<br><br>Yes.<br><br>Yes. Yes. And I always think that it's, you know, becoming familiar with those tools outside of highly triggered moments. You know, like it's like you practice using the tools. So then when you want to really apply them, you've got some skill with them. And then you have your toolbox and you're familiar with those tools. This isn't just like, okay, here's a list of your emotions and what your needs are. And then you wait until you're in a really triggered day. You have all this thing. Your nervous system is exploding.<br><br>And then you try to pull that out, make sense of it, work yourself through it, right? Like you got to start using all tools in my experience regularly or somewhat regularly get familiar with them, use them when you're clear headed, use them when you're not as triggered or you're lightly triggered. And then when you are heavily triggered, those tools just slice right through all of it because you already are connected to them. You already know how to use them.<br><br>JJ Flizanes (39:30.824)<br>Yeah, it's little by little feeling going back to what my definition of inner peace is, is the knowing. I'm going to be good no matter what happens because I have a tool to help. I have an understanding, I have a belief, I have a trust in myself, in what I know and what I do that no problem will ever be too big because I'll think because I know how to process my emotions. I know how to problem solve the situation and I understand growth isn't.<br><br>easy sometimes and then growth is going to require support and help and a community and someone to hold you your feet to the fire when you want that to happen. Yeah, it's it's amazing. I think that everybody you had said earlier about Michael Jordan having a coach, everybody needs that reflection. I one of my most recent recent coaches whom I love dearly.<br><br>Alara (39:56.575)<br>Yes.<br><br>JJ Flizanes (40:20.072)<br>but she didn't, she wasn't able to do for me what I want. She didn't, she wasn't me. Let's be honest, she wasn't me. I was going to her with the idea of, I want her to tell me what she sees in me that I can't see. I'm thinking, she's sitting at a higher position than I am right now. Can you reflect? And I didn't get that.<br><br>But that's okay. I also didn't ask for that. I wasn't clear about coming in and saying, could you please reflect back to me? I think somewhere in there I did say that. Well, what do you think? Or what do you think's possible? And she wouldn't, she wouldn't give me an answer. And I thought, okay, nevermind then. I'm looking for someone to see my path and believe in me more than I'm believing in myself right now. And you didn't do that, but that's okay. I'm not holding you responsible for my feelings, but I went back and watched the session and got a lot out of it. And she's amazing. She's a great coach.<br><br>But I definitely recognize, like what you said, sometimes people need and want someone else's point of view because it's gonna be a better story than theirs.<br><br>Alara (41:14.911)<br>Yeah, then it's always this balance, isn't it, between seeking that external reflection, seeking that inspiration, which can be really powerful for us, particularly when we're really wanting to quantum leap, really make a large transformation, or just having that support. And simultaneously, the balance of that and, of course, always self -sourcing, right? Always self -sourcing. I think it's very easy for people to go to Google<br><br>become addicted to any level of this, whether it is talk therapy or coaching mentors seeking that constant source outside of themselves. And so for me, it's always that balance of really, is this really time for myself to have a coach to have reflection? Or is this a time for me to come back in of self, dig deeper, connect deeper into myself and or of course always a combination.<br><br>It's always a combination of both, at least. It's never just always the other person. But it's so important to also comment on that because I think in this new kind of era, there is this wonderful experience of coaching and mentorship that is outside of traditional methods. And I'm all for expansion in everything. Traditional is great, and we can learn also from traditional. And we can bring in new concepts, new ideas.<br><br>And so in this new era of coaching and mentorship where it's everywhere and it's so easily accessible, you know, we have to always be asking ourselves, am I giving my power away?<br><br>JJ Flizanes (42:45.192)<br>Absolutely.<br><br>Alara (42:47.935)<br>Beautiful. So how can people find you? You know, you mentioned the download and all of that. So yes, please make the audience aware of how they can find you.<br><br>JJ Flizanes (42:55.944)<br>Okay, so the first thing is the masterclass 90 minute three reasons why talk therapy is ineffective. If you just go to JJFlazane .com, it's my website, JJFlazane .com. It will be there on the homepage. You can sign up and watch it immediately. It's not a download. So it won't be on your computer or your phone or anything. So don't worry. And then the feelings and needs list. You will not find this on my website. This is a specific link. This is JJFlazane .com forward slash feelings list. So with an S, feelings list.<br><br>And that is a download that I just share only when I teach it. That's why it doesn't live on the website because you won't know what to do with it unless I explain it. Like you won't understand it necessarily. It'll be a nice piece of paper, but it won't necessarily explain what to do with it. So yeah, that's for everybody to, and again, my recommendation is print many, many, many, many copies. Put them in your desk, put them in your purse, put them in your car, put them in the bathroom, put them anywhere you're feeling like, my God, I'm kind of off.<br><br>Alara (43:32.639)<br>Yeah.<br><br>JJ Flizanes (43:49.8)<br>And it could help with your, again, your children, your spouse, your whoever. It could help you listen better. It could help you even if you're not trying to, if you're not triggered by whatever is going on with them, you could just help them by identifying. Someone of my friends who took the class with me, and that's when I really realized that the way they teach it, my brain interpreted it differently. She couldn't identify the feeling she was actually having.<br><br>because she didn't have the vocabulary. She didn't have the awareness of that. So I said, sounds like you're actually really just nervous. She was talking about smoking near a why she gets aggravated or agitated or angry that people smoke when they're pumping gas. And it says not to do that. And she was angry about it. And I said, OK, well, you can't really control that. I said, it sounds like what you really are is your anger is like your control piece, but you're really nervous and sad and maybe scared because it's dangerous. It could hurt you. And she goes,<br><br>yeah, that's what I meant. I'm like, yeah, it's not what you said. But but but that's but again, that's that's where you build this vocabulary. You fine tune, you identify, you get more specific and not only it helps you, but it'll help you help others to.<br><br>Alara (44:42.239)<br>Hahaha!<br><br>Alara (44:54.687)<br>Yes, thank you so much for sharing that. And also, I think it would help people just, again, attune to, as you mentioned earlier, the different vibrations that exist, basically kind of, I say, is in a genre of an emotional spectrum. And we can get more precise and specific, which again, helps us specifically as well as it helps others. So thank you so much, JJ, for sharing that and for being a guest on the pod show. I love it so much. Really, really great conversation.<br><br>JJ Flizanes (45:21.72)<br>Thank you so much. Honored to be here. Hope it was of value and definitely love this conversation. Love connecting with people like yourself who we can take. I can bring out the word transmute because it's my favorite word, but it's just not, you know, one of those words that people care about, get, think it's weird. You know, and I'm like, it's such a good word. It's like, yeah. Great. Excellent. Love it.<br><br>Alara (45:32.255)<br>Alara (45:40.383)<br>yeah, we do all weird things here. All weird, all out of the box. So thank you so much and to the audience as always, my loves, thank you. Be sure to share this episode. This is one of those episodes that is pretty expansive in the context so you can share this with quite a wide, wide audience, wide array of people.<br><br>Make sure you download that sheet start to apply those techniques to your life so that you can see those transformations and As always I'm always open to hearing how this episode affected you what inspired you how you were able to receive it and I love you all so very much. I will see you on the next episode of the ecstatic woman podcast<br><br>Alara (46:30.943)<br>Wonderful.<br><br><br></p>
