Episode 64 - Emma McAdam
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Mel: / [00:00:00]
Welcome to Permission to be Human, the podcast. I'm your host Mel Findlater mother, coach, and curator of Permission to be Human, the company and community. If you're a mom, know a mom, or want to be a mom, and you crave getting out in the world to make a difference, then you're in the right place. This is a space for moms like you to connect with yourself, your purpose, and your big audacious dreams.
Because when you feel your best, you can better you, your family, and the wider world. Let's do this.
Oh, my goodness dream guests today, today we have Emma, McAdam, who runs therapy in a nutshell. And she has so graciously agreed to come on and chat to us about. Her journey, her big audacious dream. How she became this 1.6 million subscriber, YouTube. Person. [00:01:00] And how she was she's out there with the mission of making mental health skills, more accessible. So that millions of people can get better at feeling how stinking amazing is that.
So she's out there doing this stuff, making a difference in the world. And. Honestly, doing what I wish. And dream of doing, going forwards and reaching so many, so many people. So.
Welcome to Emma. β
Mel: / Okay, thanks Emma for joining me today.
Emma: Yeah, thank you so much for inviting me and being patient with my schedule.
Mel: Totally fine. I know what it's like to be in like, the crux of motherhood. And I think you're, is it your daughter?
Emma: I have four daughters. You have four daughters?
Mel: Oh my goodness. And how old are they?
Emma: Nine, [00:02:00] seven, four and a half, and almost two. Oh my goodness.
Mel: Yes. That sounds full on.
Emma: Yeah, it's kind of busy. It's a little bit busy. I think last time, last time we had it scheduled, I think I had, like, laryngitis, I'm pretty sure. Like, the whole family had been sick and I had no voice anymore. So,
Mel: yeah,
Emma: always busy.
Always busy.
Mel: Yeah. Amazing. So tell us about you. Who's Who's Emma?
Emma: Yeah. I'm Emma McAdam. I'm a lot of people know me from my online stuff, so I'll start with my business, but I'm, I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist. I make mental health content more accessible through YouTube videos. So I, about seven years ago, so my first daughter was born and I had been working full time as a therapist.
And, I, I quit to be her mom and I had two problems at the same time. One was that I was going a little bit [00:03:00] crazy because I was like, Simultaneously a little bit too, like, stressed and a little bit too bored all at the same time, which is how I experienced motherhood and also I had people who just kept asking me questions about mental health and they just kept asking questions and I wanted to help them and help more people.
So in my, like, early morning hours, I started making, videos, writing videos about the topics I wish people had access to, like the mental health education I wish people had more access to. So that's, that's, that's me. The short version, I guess. That's a short
Mel: version of your business side. What would the other side be?
Emma: Yeah, great question. I am, ooh, do I ever talk about myself? Okay, so yeah, like I'm in the thick of motherhood. Got these four girls. They're a little bit spicy. They've got curly hair. A couple of them are [00:04:00] redheads. I, live in Utah. We like the outdoors. We do a lot of, well, we try to get out and go camping and stuff.
I definitely was like kind of a granola. I did recreation management as my bachelor's degree and did a lot of like outdoorsy things, working at camps, worked in a couple of wilderness therapy programs. So yeah. We lived outside, hundreds of nights camping outside. And you know, now I'm trying to, I've finished nursing my baby, and I'm trying to, like, get back into shape, like, get back into climbing.
You'll see I've got, like, a, Like tape on my hand. I like tore my tendon climbing a few weeks ago, like trying to figure out like how to get back into like being a little bit healthier and I don't know. I'm a complete nerd. I'm into all sorts of random [00:05:00] stuff. I like to go looking for fossils. I like looking at bugs.
I like taking pictures. I'm into archaeology. I do metal detecting as a hobby when I can, which is like once or twice a month, you know, yeah. Yeah, I like playing outside in my garden, riding my bike.
Mel: Amazing. That sounds so good. There's so many things in there. I'm like, oh, my daughter would love you.
Because we're a Vancouver Island and we've really, well, my daughter actually has really brought me into nature so much more in the last few years when we moved back here from the UK about well, March, 2020, four years ago. And yeah, she's, she would love everything about that as do, as do I. Including all the like nerd things as you, as you, as you call them.
So that's awesome. I
Emma: have a spreadsheet of fossil locations and one of them is in British Columbia and it's like a well known. fossil mountain covered in like little plant and bug fossils, so.
Mel: Fascinating. So my [00:06:00] daughter, actually, on Sunday, I don't know where that is, but they went up a little mountain that my father in law actually lives on, and went fossil hunting, and she found a, a leaf fossil on a bit of land.
Yeah, I
Emma: bet it's the same thing that's in my spreadsheet, like, this is how nerdy I am, right? Like, I'm a very nerdy granola, but that's cool, like, it's one of the, it's one of the kind of better plant and bug fossil locations in the world, so that's like, cool.
Mel: I'll have to look up whether like that's the spot.
It definitely seems to be the spot on the Island. So, yeah, yeah, that's awesome. So you've got, you know, this mixture of, of a pretty intense mum life. I can imagine with four girls that are, you know, still pretty young there really and, and this, In a new version of a, of a practice supporting people to really learn about their mental health and the tools that, that will help them.
Yeah. Yeah. So like, what a great combination. Plus all these other fun activities like, you know, finding [00:07:00] metal,
Emma: which I love. Yeah. I, I do. Like, I definitely, I have, I have this friend who's a therapist. And for like two years, she's been like, so Emma, are you interested in getting assessed for ADHD? Like, she's like an ADHD specialist, and she's like, Emma, I think, like, like, I think you might, like, may be fit to do.
I'm like, Probably true.
Mel: Probably, but well, who knows? I don't know you that well, but Even if it is, like, what a beautiful mixture of, of interests and activities to do, right?
Emma: Yeah, very random, very random, but I enjoy it. Thanks,
Mel: exactly. And actually, like, you know, a lot of the times on this podcast I have titles that are like, permission to whatever, right?
Permission to dream big. Permission to Be overwhelmed. Permission to do a million things. Like that's definitely should be one of them, right? Like, it's all right. We like a lot of different things. It's all good. Yeah, that's definitely what my life looks like too. I love, [00:08:00] I love a lot of different things.
Many of them are completely unrelated. So yeah, that's awesome. How many kids do I have? I have two children. I have a nine year old girl and a six year old boy.
Emma: Awesome.
Mel: Yeah. And a dog. And a cat.
Emma: Important. Those are important.
Mel: Yeah. Well, they are a responsibility, so I'll add them to the list.
Emma: Exactly.
Mel: Yeah.
Yeah. Awesome. So I was really intrigued by, I, I somehow randomly kind of came across you when, after watching someone else's TED talk or something kind of came up and, so you have an online business, as you said, called Therapy in a Nutshell. Which I love the name of, by the well, by the way. Thank you.
First, like, firstly, like, the word granola, as you've used it, it's like perfect, it's like the image is perfect, right? Like, it's really a nutshell. And [00:09:00] and I love that. And I watched a video, so that first video that I watched was, I'm not sure the exact title to it, but it was something along the lines of Swapping Anxiety for Joy.
And. Anxiety has been a part of my life for a long time. I just didn't know it until a few years ago, as well as supporting my kids through a lot of anxiety stuff as well. And, you know, this concept and the really specific idea of swapping out that anxiety for joy was just so appealing to me, right?
Because so often we can look at topics like anxiety and it's, they're just, you get tired of talking about it, you know? Oh yeah. It's so dark and gloomy and like annoying, right? But this concept of swapping it out for joy is It's just beautiful. And the science that you give behind that is, you know, an important part of that.
And in all your videos, you're like, yeah, this is like [00:10:00] how your body actually works. So you can actually just do this or swap this or do this. So I find that really inspiring. I wonder if you can, you know, that was a 15 minute video. You're not going to say it all right now, but if you can give us like kind of a flavor of.
What that is. How can you swap? Sure,
Emma: sure. So I think, I think one of the things I would say, and this is a big part of what I, the work I do, is to take a bigger step back and look at emotions in general. And I think for, you know, hundreds of years, psychology was dominated, I'm not a raging feminist, but here I go, dominated by white males who I love a raging
Mel: feminist.
You go for it.
Emma: Who told people that basically, you know, you have five emotions, And they're all bad except for happiness. Fear is bad. Guilt is bad. Jealousy is bad. Like all these feelings are bad. And the goal of life is to feel less, to not have those feelings, unless they're happy, then it's okay.
Have a bunch of that. And I [00:11:00] think in a way, women who tend to be more sensitive and more emotional have been told ever that like, Oh, having feelings is bad. And it's a sign of weakness. And I do not agree with this. Like emotions. including the ones that are uncomfortable, serve functions. And we especially as women, but there's also very sensitive men and in tune men and emotional men who, who have skills at this.
I'm not saying women are the only one who can do this, but women tend to be more emotionally in tune than men do. We have this immense capacity to feel and observe and learn from our emotions and to channel them into action, into living the lives that we value. So every emotion serves a function.
And even something like guilt, right? Guilt might seem like a negative emotion because it's uncomfortable. Or fear might seem like a negative emotion because it's uncomfortable. But fear, like, I want my kids to have a little bit of anxiety. I want them, when they're going up to a busy road, to feel a teeny [00:12:00] twinge of fear.
that motivates them to take action and check, am I safe or am I not? And then to determine, oh, I am safe right now, I'll cross the street. And that's what emotion should do. So we, we, we should be able to feel emotions, listen to them, and then choose whether they're giving us important information or not.
And sometimes they lie to us, like our emotions are liars sometimes. And then we choose what action to take in line with our values. And but by values, I mean, like the kind of life we want to live. So when I think you're talking about the video where I talk about transforming, changing our labels around anxiety and deciding to shift it into excitement.
And I think for a long time, women have been told you shouldn't feel that way. You're too sensitive. Stop being like that. Let's be normal. Calm down, you know, you're overreacting, you're being too sensitive. And that whole idea is to take an activated energetic emotion like anxiety and just try and stuff it.
And the women have been kind of swallowing the emotions, putting them in their [00:13:00] backpack, carrying them around with them, absorbing them into their bodies, eating them, you know, all these things. So we'll be just holding them instead of And research shows it's very difficult to switch an activated emotion into a lower energy emotion like calm and peace in a direct manner, right?
Like it's much harder to take anxiety and just be like, just calm down than it is to be like, take that anxiety about how messy your house is and channel it into vacuuming. Let's go. Right. And so one of these, one of these psychological techniques. Is removing the judgment from anxiety. And instead of saying, I shouldn't feel anxious, this is bad.
Like, Oh, anxiety is a form of excitement. I'm going to channel it into action. I'm anxious about going to college. Oh, I'm excited about the opportunities I have to go to college. I'm anxious about this date. Oh, I'm excited to try something new and stretch myself, you know, and just, just changing our judgment [00:14:00] of emotions a little bit into something that's actionable and it's still a high energy level.
Instead of just suppressing and shutting down. So that's, there you go. Was that nutshell enough for
Mel: you?
Emma: That
Mel: was nutshell enough. That was like, I'm asking you to go to like micro nutshell, I guess. But I love it. Yeah, I think that's great. And you know, you really tap on into this thing that we really, You know, that judgment that comes with all of the emotions that we feel.
And, you know, the name of this podcast is Permission to be Human for a Reason, right? Because we have all of these emotions, we have all of these experiences, and like, that's who we are. We are human. And I, I love this example of the anxiety to joy because, like you say, it's like you're at this high level.
How annoying is it when someone tells you to calm down? When you, like, feel like throwing something. Like, it just makes you want to throw something harder. Right? Like, it's It doesn't
Emma: work! It's not helpful! Like, you might be
Mel: right!
Emma: But it's not helpful. And usually, like, there's something better to [00:15:00] do with those feelings.
Yeah, super annoying, not helpful. Exactly.
Mel: Exactly. And, you know, it's when you're in those super heightened emotions. So that, that was a really a, what's the word I'm looking for? Like a Game changer is far too big of a word for what I'm trying to say, but like, you know, it really flipped something in my, in my mind to be like, yeah, okay, like, let's, let's just try to redirect that.
Even, you know, funnily enough, the most tangible example of how this then shifted the way I think is with my dog, who was just barking in the background, and I'm like, thinking, stop. I didn't hear him. Great. She has a lot of anxiety. This dog called Joyful Star is full of anxiety about the world and any sound or things she might see.
And, you know, we're trying to shift her from you know, freaking out about the ATV that might pass by our house, which we get a lot of, unfortunately, to, you know, like not freaking out. About the ATV that's passing the house and I had this [00:16:00] conversation with my husband the other day I was like well what if we just like give her a toy out like as soon as she notices and you could see that she's like up there we're like let's swap that out for excitement and joy and have her play instead of like sit on your mats and like Calm down, because, like, she's not gonna, right?
She'll go for a second, and then she'll just go off again. So, I don't know if that works. I'm not a dog trainer, right? But, it really does sound like it makes sense to me. It's definitely kind of had me start to think about that a little bit differently.
Emma: Well, I wonder, I'm not a dog trainer either, I'm not a dog trainer either, but I do wonder, like, what would happen if every time an ATV went by, she came to whoever's in the house, Sat down and asked for a treat then all of a sudden an ATV would be like a sign of excitement, right?
Like yeah, here's one tiny treat. You got a loud noise. Come get a treat. Let's go Yeah, that's what my dog trainer
Mel: actually does want us to do. The challenge is I don't always have a treat in my hand and You have to catch her before she starts [00:17:00] barking. Otherwise, my dog is so intelligent She's like if I bark at the window, you'll give me a treat Right.
Emma: Oh no, now you're going to be carrying like a fanny pack full of dog food around.
Mel: Oh, it happened for the first while, yeah, for sure, for sure. Yeah, so that's a whole nother, like, we could just have a conversation about dog training if you'd like, but. I'm not, I'm not adult enough yet
Emma: to have a dog. I want a dog really bad, but I keep Just four girls.
That I'm not ready. I'm just not mature enough yet to handle taking care of a dog.
Mel: You know, it is a whole nother level actually, with kids. That's actually one of the biggest ones, because, you know, you have to keep them all in the right setting and the right safety zone and all the things that go with that, so.
That's kind of a whole nother topic, but I would love to hear more about your story. So, you know, you went from this. [00:18:00] In person, I assume, maybe online as well. Therapy, right? Being a, I can't remember the exact words you use, but like couples and marriage therapy. Yeah, I'm a marriage and family therapist.
There it is. Yep. Well done. And do you still do some of that now?
Emma: So I haven't done it for about a year. My, my daughter, my youngest daughter was born about 20 months ago and I was going to start seeing new clients again after about a year. Yep. And then she, she got sick. So we've got, we've been kind of managing an autoimmune condition with her and I haven't gone back to doing therapy, but I'm hoping in the fall that I'll be able to get back to doing therapy because I just love doing
Mel: therapy.
Yeah. Yeah. And what was it like to have that journey from like shifting away from that to this, this different way of helping? Yeah.
Emma: I would say, like, for me, so first off, just the shift from, like, working full time to being a full time mom was [00:19:00] really, really hard for me. I found it very isolating and very unstimulating.
I found it just really challenging. I know there's a lot of women who love to work. Mothering, love parenting, and I come from a religious community where like mothering is the highest form of everything and all the moms are so sweet and so good and I'm like here I have this granola, like I don't know, you know, so like that transition was really tricky to figure out and I needed like for me working a little bit helps https: otter.
ai Some variety and it gives me some stimulation and I don't know it's that's that's been Really good for me to work a few hours every day But yeah shifting from seeing people in person to doing online work has also been really interesting So I started my youtube channel in 2017 and it was really just a passion project I just like really cared and I wanted to make this content [00:20:00] And I made content for two and a half years, and I, I had like a pretty small following.
I think I had like about, at the end of two and a half years, I had 20, 000 followers on YouTube. And I was like, wow, I can't believe that. That's amazing. But I was making about 20 a month. And it was a lot of work. We had our third child and me and my husband were like, we don't have time anymore to make this.
I was about ready to quit my YouTube channel. And there's a few other details in there. Like I learned some more strategies. I learned about what SEO is, which is search engine optimization, how to get found on the internet. And I was about ready to quit at the beginning of 2019. And I'm a religious person, I said a prayer, and I felt very strongly that I needed to just continue for a little bit longer.
So, this was January of 2020 at this point. I was like, I gotta quit. My family's too busy. Three girls under five. And, I kept [00:21:00] going, kept making content. And in 2020, my channel took off. Two of my videos went viral. I got like a hundred thousand subscribers and all of a sudden We were making enough revenue that we could like hire a babysitter, you know, like to be able to work because I couldn't just grab it with three kids.
You no longer have like nap time, you no longer have like early morning or late night hours. Like you don't have any free time anymore with three other kids. And so, So the channel just continued to grow and I consistently made content and continued to learn the strategy and by 2021 my husband was able to quit his job and, help work for the channel and now we've got five employees.
So I continue to work 15 hours a week. That's it. I work three hours every day. And then I spend the rest of time in the home and with my kids. And I think it's, I think it's a good balance. [00:22:00] For us. I do miss seeing clients face to face and right now I'm feeling a little burned out on like writing videos because I, love seeing clients and I haven't seen them for like, oh, well, I saw I saw one at the end of last year, but I really haven't seen very many clients for two years since having a baby.
So that's kind of tricky. But online work is interesting too. It's good to be able to impact the online community and in an attempt to make it like a positive and educational space where there's a lot of kind of misinformation out there.
Mel: Yeah. Yeah. There's like, there's a couple of things coming to my mind there.
The top of the mind one in what you just said is, is around this, this difference between the on and offline world, right? This, this connection that you get in person that you're really not going to get through creating a YouTube channel. video. Oh, yeah. Right? You know, you're going to reach way more people by making the video.
[00:23:00] And there's this like depth and, and relationship and connection through the actual in person work.
Emma: Yeah. Yeah. Yesterday I did like a couple of meetings first thing in the morning. I'd like gone for a run. And then I had a couple of meetings first thing in the morning. And by like 11 o'clock I was done with work.
And I was still in my pajamas and Ryan's like, man, Emma, we're like, this is some people's dream. Like, cause I'd gone for a run in my pajamas and I did a business call in my pajamas. Brilliant. Pajama bottoms with like a shirt on. And Ryan's like, this is living the dream. And I'm like, it kind of is, but also we've had quite a few struggles.
Like Brian and I working together from home is really isolating. Like neither of us have work friends anymore. Like neither, like we don't, you know, like step outside and go to work, drive to work. And then leave work at work and drive home. It's like kind of all blurred together. And there's some really tricky boundary stuff.
Ryan and I've had to really work on, on, Re configuring our boundaries and our roles and who takes care of what. And we've just [00:24:00] tons of conversations about like, wait, what are we doing? Like, how are we going to do this? Like who's responsible for what? And, so that's been challenging, but it's been awesome.
But it's like. Yeah, like not being in person with people is really hard.
Mel: For sure. And I think a lot of people can probably identify with that having gone through, you know, COVID and working at home. And a lot of people now still working at home. I know my husband, I both still mostly work at home, right?
And I feel it's such a privilege when I get to, cause I coach people, especially nature based. And when I get to do that, it's, Such a privilege, right? This is totally different than just chatting to someone on the screen. And I know my husband definitely, I don't think he'd mind me saying like, you know, when we shifted and moved to Canada, it was then all online cause it happened all during COVID and, and it's not easy, like you say, it's not easy to, keep yourself like motivated [00:25:00] to do, to do that work, even if you're on meetings all day and having that connection in theory, right?
There's a depth that really happens in person. Yeah.
Emma: Yeah. I think so. And, you know, psychology will tell you like that eye contact, that physical interactions in person actually impacts our nervous system. It changes our heart rate, it changes our blood pressure and doing things online, interacting with people online doesn't do
Mel: that.
Emma: It's not soothing. It's not connecting in the same way. It doesn't release the same amounts of like oxytocin and
Mel: stuff.
Emma: It's better than nothing. It's better than nothing.
Mel: Yeah.
Emma: But it's not as good as a person.
Mel: Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Okay. So one of the questions I usually ask everybody as this Podcast is for moms who have big audacious dreams or want to have them.
What is your big audacious dream?
Emma: I have an undying belief that people I have an undying belief in people's ability to [00:26:00] change and improve themselves And I know that there are hundreds of skills that are And so I really, my, my big dream is like, people don't know what they don't know, and most things I also consistently believe that it's probably figureoutable, like most problems are figureoutable.
And so my big dream is like helping people learn the skills that they didn't even know they were missing. Because then they might be able to figure things out and I, I strongly believe that with the right resources, support, love, education, that people can really massively improve their lives. And that's in contradiction to the mentality that's kind of a fixed mindset, like, oh, if you have a diagnosis, you're kind of broken.
Or if you have a diagnosis, you know, you can just cope with it. And I don't, I don't really buy that. So the magic dream is like, oh, let's change the world. [00:27:00] Let's make mental health skills more accessible, so that people who can't afford therapy can't access therapy. Or Like in conjunction with therapy you can get as much mental health education as possible because they can change their lives and And live better lives and hopefully in that way, spread less intergenerational trauma.
So yeah, in short, change the world. And when all my kids are in school and I have more time, I want to make a YouTube channel about marriages and families and parenting, because that's like, I don't know if you've heard the analogy, like you can build a fence at the top of the hill or have an ambulance at the bottom of the hill.
And it's like, I think marriages and families are the fence at the top of the hill to protect children from having as much mental health concerns later. And then I'd like to make a channel about escaping poverty, like, basic skills that people in poverty maybe could benefit from. So and then, and then, let's go with, like, Let's make a channel on like how to, how to manage conflict and politics in a respectful and healthy [00:28:00] way.
And then in the end, we'll just have world peace. Okay. That sounds great.
Mel: You just do all those things. I love it. Yeah. Little by little. I've got time. I've got 40
Emma: years. Let's go.
Mel: Totally. And this is just like a season of your life with four young children, right? I can't even imagine what you're going to achieve once once you're past that, right?
When they're a little bit older and who knows, maybe with them alongside you, you know, because everything you're doing is inspiring those kids that you're raising every day. So I hope so. I hope so. It is. You know,
Emma: like kids these days, like their top career is like to be a YouTuber. But when they say that They're not thinking about, like, me sitting in my office teaching therapy skills.
They're thinking about freaking Mr. Beast, like, I don't know, desert survival on an island. What I do is not glamorous, let's be honest.
Mel: Yeah, but you know what, it shows that, like, that's possible. That you're like, I have this dream, I want to change the world. This is the information I want to get out of there.
This is [00:29:00] the difference I want to make, and I'm going to go do it. Like that's what you're teaching your kids, right? That when you have these big dreams and you want to go do it in whatever way that is, YouTube may not exist when they're adults. Right. Right. But it will enable them to have that example of someone who has gone and done it, who they believe in love and, you know, so I think that's so, so awesome.
And you know, I, I took a quick peek at your website to remind myself of things before we started chatting and there's, there was a phrase that really And I think one of the things that stuck out to me, and it was get better at feeling, and I really love that. I don't know if you want to speak to that.
Emma: Yeah, I think so often, again, people try to get feeling better. They try to force themselves to feel happy, or they try to force themselves not to feel sad. And I do think feeling better is part of, you know, our process and our progress. But, when we, when we focus our energy on our feelings, we're [00:30:00] really focusing our energy on something we can't control directly.
We can impact it, we can feed it, we can foster it with positive thoughts and helpful actions and clarity and, you know, self care, but, a skill we can actually directly impact is our ability to experience emotion, our ability to tolerate discomfort. Our ability to know exactly what to do, big, painful, uncomfortable, loud, exciting, fun, thrilling feelings, like all the feelings out there.
And I think it's a practical skill you can develop, is to get really good at having feelings instead of just feeling good all the time.
Mel: Yeah, so good there, right? And it's really intriguing to hear a therapist talk about it in that way, because I think the view of therapy, like culturally, is that we go and we Well, maybe we might say we go and we talk about our feelings, but we, we talk, we [00:31:00] talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, right?
Yeah, as opposed to necessarily we go and learn how to feel right and a lot of people I think avoid therapy because it's like well, like I don't even know what I feel, like,
Emma: because we've
Mel: gotten so good at squashing it down because we've been taught to do that through a variety of cultural, you know, things out there.
So yeah, it's fascinating to listen to you, speak about it in that way. And I love, I just love that, that phrasing. Get better. Yeah. I
Emma: borrowed. I want to be clear. I borrowed that from Stephen Hayes, who is the founder of acceptance and commitment therapy. And I think therapy is moving in this direction where CBT was about like, Oh, let's change our thoughts so we can not feel sad.
And now acceptance commitment therapy is moving more toward this gentler, more open approach to like, I'm not going to try and control and force my feelings. I'm going to get so good at feeling them. They're here, but I'm moving in a [00:32:00] direction. My life has a purpose and meaning. I can feel my feelings, and I can think my thoughts, and I can notice them, but I don't have to buy them, believe them, or act on them, because I have direction, purpose in my life, and I'm going that direction.
So, and these are practical skills. These aren't like, woo woo, like just stare at your navel and say, oh, I mean, that could be helpful, too. You never know. But like, it's like, there are practical skills. Thank you. To where so it's called willingness is one of the practical skills and, you can, just like you would practice baseball, you can practice willingness with very practical exercises that involve like curiosity and nonjudgmental attitude, but you can practice feeling things so that you get good at it.
And then feelings don't feel so heavy or overwhelming. It's just like, oh, that's the thing. Okay. Yeah.
Mel: Yeah, I love that. You know, there's this, I remember the moment I started to think that way and it's definitely been practicing to try to do that more. But I was [00:33:00] at a, I was at a, something called Camp Good Life Project.
So like at a camp for adults where we just enjoyed this kind of stuff. And one of the like, I, I've never been like a meditator in my life necessarily, but I went to the early morning meditation group session, and the, the kind of process he walked us through was envisioning that we were in a, a fish.
Right? Or a tank, I suppose. And that when you're sitting there, kind of just relaxing and breathing, you're going to have fish go by. Those are like your thoughts, and each thought is a fish. And like, we can't just resist the fish, like it exists. We can't just like, blow it away or something, right? We can choose to just say, oh, hey fish.
That's interesting. I'm like, let it just keep floating by. And I really love, like, as a very metaphor oriented visual thinker myself, hence why I love the nutshell concept. You know, that works for me because it's, it's about, okay, like, I notice that I'm [00:34:00] annoyed about anxiety right now. Off you go. Thanks.
Thanks for the information, right? And yeah, I just like the idea of my, my thoughts floating around as well and able to just keep floating away.
Emma: That's a great metaphor. It's a great metaphor. And, commitment therapy has like a technical term for that and it's an evidence based, treatment and it's called cognitive diffusion.
It's separating and noticing our thoughts. And it's, it's an important life skill, being able to choose your values. So if you notice yourself having a thought like, I want to, I don't know, punch someone like, Oh, thank you. There's a thought there's that fish swimming by. That's a thought. I don't have to believe it or act on it or argue with it or fight with it or suppress it.
I can just notice that thought and be like, well, actually, what do I value? What do I, what direction am I going?
Mel: What do
Emma: I care about doing in my life? And that's it. Yeah, it's a practical skill. I love it.
Mel: And choose whether you want to follow it or not, you [00:35:00] know,
Emma: that's right. Yeah,
Mel: for sure. That's awesome.
Okay. So. We've got your big audacious dream, which I absolutely love. It's like 60 million dreams, which is my kind of style and go to. And then all boiling down to like, I'm going to change the world. Like, that's awesome. Right. I a hundred percent think you are going to do that. That's the way like ripple effects work.
Right. And. I'm curious, you know, knowing what our audience is, we're a bunch of mums, and you're in the thick of motherhood, right? What do you think we need to know? Like, what's the most important piece of knowledge? If you were, if you were creating a channel right now, for like, this is, this is for mums.
What would you really want to say to them?
Emma: I would say a couple things. The first thing I would say is you [00:36:00] don't have to do more. Like, you don't have to just do more, more, more, and there's a big draw to that. Like, I, I, I, like, and I mean this in a sincere way, but I know if I worked full time, we could make another million dollars a year. Like, we could make a million dollars more than we're making.
And I don't want to. Like, I'm choosing not to. Because I'm choosing to like make my one video a week and that's my impact and we're doing okay financially like it's fine. Everything's fine and I think there's a tendency to feel like I should be doing every single thing and all the things and like as a social media creator.
Like, clearly, I ought to be on TikTok. I ought to be on Twitter. I ought to be using Facebook more. I probably should, like, look at my Instagram page once in a while. And I have decided to selectively just, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna work on those channels. And I'm just going to focus on my YouTube channel, and I'm going to make my video a week, every week as best I can, and just be consistent [00:37:00] with that one thing, even though I do want to change the world, and I want to start four channels, I want all those channels to be on all the social media platforms, it's like, realistically, I have to just choose to make my small impact where I can, and I do think that as moms, we have to selectively choose, like, what our focus is going to be and where our attention is And it's really hard when we're pulled in so many directions.
Oh, should I have my kids in 10 activities? Should I be doing the PTA? Should I be cleaning my house perfectly? Should I be wearing makeup every single day? I don't. Should, like, like, and so, I would just say, like, I, you don't have to do more to have a big impact. Raising your children with love is a massive impact.
That changes the world. Being friendly in your neighborhood has a massive impact. And if you want to choose like one other area that you want to have a massive impact do that But don't feel like you have to do all the areas like join the pta wear makeup every day look beautiful Whatever it [00:38:00] is but it's like I think the draw is to do too many things and feel guilty when we don't, and so I just say like, it's okay to just be really selective, and I think that manifests in how I, I do my, my work, but also in my, in my family life.
And I think that requires a lot of, like, it requires a half an hour to an hour every week of just gaining clarity. Where you sit down at 5 a. m. on a Sunday, that's usually when I do it, and look at my calendar and make an intentional decision about, like, how How, how much of my week is going to be really busy, how much of my week is going to be doing work, how much of my week is going to be like just with the kids, you know, how much of my week, and like just being really intentional about how we spend our days.
That would be, that would be my number one piece of advice.
Mel: Yeah, I love [00:39:00] that. And, you know, the things that are really coming through for me there is one, like living with intention, right? Slowing down to actually think like, what is my intention in this moment or this day or this week? And, you know, you've spoken about it before, but like the values that lead that and guide that, right?
Yeah.
Emma: And, and, and to be clear when I say values, cause a lot of people think religious values. And what I mean by values is. If you were to look back over your entire life when you come to die, what would you consider to be the most valuable way that you spent your life? When your time comes to die, what do you choose to be most important?
So, so for me, it's doing good in the world, it's serving, it's living with integrity, it's spending time outdoors, it's loving my family. Those are my values. And I, and then each week I choose to align my time with those values and each day I choose to align my time with those values.
Mel: [00:40:00] Yeah, yeah, that's brilliant.
And the other thing that really came out in your description there was, was the shoulds, you know, that we put on ourself, as well as what culturally and society puts on us as, as women, as mothers, as, as all the things. But, you know, you really tapped into the shoulds we put on ourselves there as well. And as the big audacious dreamers, right?
Like I'm the epitome of that. It can be really easy to think that I'm not doing anything because I'm not doing everything, right? And actually choosing, choosing that one thing to focus on is, it's huge and very difficult to do, right? And saying like, yet at the end of it, it's like, yeah, this is the big Audrey, you know, I want to start these other six channels and I'm not going to do it yet.
But maybe I'll still dream of it in another two years, five years, 10 years, whatever it might be. And, [00:41:00] and maybe I won't. Maybe that will shift it to something completely different or a different method of achieving that. Right. So I really love that you kind of, you point that out cause I think it definitely comes up, especially for those of us who do have these really big dreams and therefore expectations of ourselves, you know, to change the world.
you know, check in on our savior complex around that too, right? Because I say the same thing and I'm like, hold on, like, is that my job? Right? And it is.
Emma: It's true. It's true. Yes. Yes. Yes. And, and I think in order to say yes to anything, we have to say no to hundreds of things.
Mel: Yeah.
Emma: And the other thing I would say is that genuinely caring about a big audacious dream is going to hurt.
It's going to hurt. It's like painful, not because you're not going to reach your dream, because caring about that dream when, [00:42:00] you also have to say no to it for a while to take care of your kids, or you're up in the middle of the night so you can't do things at your optimal capacity, like maintain, like still caring.
about your dream instead of numbing yourself to it requires emotional muscle. So like, I'm going to keep caring, I'm going to hold on, and I'm going to love, even though it hurts. I'm going to dream, even though it hurts, even though like this season might not be my season. It takes a lot of like, heart and willingness to feel,
Mel: yeah, just that phrase takes a lot of heart and willingness to feel it's like there's the nutshell of this conversation we just had.
Yeah.
Emma: And the only alternative is to try not to care. Yeah, I've
Mel: tried that a lot of times. I feel like a lot of people have. It doesn't really work. It
Emma: doesn't work good. No. It makes us all sad.
Mel: Yeah.
Emma: Exactly. Shut down.
Mel: Yeah.
Emma: Yeah.
Mel: For [00:43:00] sure. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for joining us today. If people are listening in and are like, Oh, I'm so intrigued by everything you're saying.
I want to find out more about you and see all the work that you are putting out there in the world. How would they find you?
Emma: Yeah, my YouTube channel is called Therapy in a Nutshell, and that's my website too, therapyinanutshell. com. We have a a free grounding skills course that teaches like how to regulate your nervous system.
You can check that out on our website if you'd like an introduction to that.
Mel: Brilliant. Excellent. Well, thank you. Thanks so much.
Emma: Yeah. Thank you for having me. Really appreciate it.
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You know when you have that dream or that idea and you hold it really tight and you don't really want to share it with anyone until you have it just right until you are absolutely assured that it is exactly what you want it to be but you also know deep down inside [00:44:00] that it is unlikely to get perfect it is unlikely to get to exactly where you want it to be unless you share it with others.
It's when we share it with other people that we get the energy and the momentum. It is when we get feedback. It is when we start to iterate inside of our own minds. We need to get it out of our bodies and into the world in some sort of way. And talking to someone who will cheer you on is exactly The first step.
Now, if you can't think of anybody in your life that you would love to share your dream with in this raw stage where you're not gonna get the words right and you're worried that they're gonna come back to you and be, yeah, but, or ooh, what if? Don't share with those people. If you can't think of who to share it with, then I want to be that person for you.
Totally complimentary, I am launching the Dream Haven and it [00:45:00] is a simple message back and forth concept where you tell me your dream and I cheer you on and tell you exactly how amazing I think it is. I can be that safe space for you and your dreams to grow into whatever they're going to grow. It's going to grow.
totally complimentary. It remains your dream, not mine. And I would absolutely love and be honored by being that person who gets to hear it first. So head on over to permissiontobehuman. ca slash the dash dream dash haven. And let's get this going. Because your dream deserves to be out there in the world.
It could be a project. It could be a business. It could be the change that you really want to see in the world. It could be an adventure that you really want to go on. You got this. Let's hear about it. Again, all you have to do is head on over to permissiontobehuman. ca slash the [00:46:00] dash dream dash haven and put your details in and you'll get a video personalized back from me inviting you to take our next step.
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Mel: That is it, folks. This has been Mel Findlater on Permission to Be Human, the podcast, and I am so glad that you have joined us here today and hope that you have taken away some tidbits that will help you go away, connect with your big audacious dream, and make that massive impact in the world that you are dying to make.
If you liked today's episode, please, please, please Like it, share it. Think of one person. Think of one person that you think would also like it and send it on over to them. Let's get this out there and more moms feeling like themselves. Inspired, Dreaming big and out there. Please do head on over to find me [00:47:00] on Facebook with permission to be human or Instagram or you can even Off me an email and say hello.
Have permission to be human always at gmail. com say hello and let me know that you listened. What did you like about it? I would love to hear if you didn't like it. I don't really want to know. Just kidding. You can share that if you want. I would love to know, however, who you are. Let's connect. Let's find out what you want more of.
I want to hear from you and I want to make it what would be useful to you. As always, remember that you have permission to dream big, permission to feel big, and permission to be you. You have complete and full permission to be human. For real, you [00:48:00] do.
