Unlocking Your Inner Peace: Embracing Spirituality and Finding Your Joy with Lisa McCourt
Are you ready to transform fear into excitement and find true inner peace? Embrace fear as a signpost for growth? Learn how to release those things that trigger you?
Hear Lauren Abrams and Lisa McCourt discuss embracing fear as a signal for potential growth and change. Learn how to shift your mindset from fear to excitement and allow it to guide you toward your most fulfilling life. Discover the profound difference between conditioned wants and soul wants, and how aligning your actions with your true desires can bring unparalleled joy.
"That fear means that, oh, there's something potentially big and juicy in front of me here." - Lisa (15:06)
“Emotion is meant to flow through us and be released. And when we have traumatic situations or little traumas, it doesn't have to be what we think of as traumas.” -Lisa (8:46)
Uncover techniques for managing emotional triggers and practicing self-compassion to release stored emotional pain.
“When we have these triggers happen, the tendency is to tense up either our physical bodies or just our energetic body. And usually, you can feel somewhere in your physical body got tense, whether your brow is furrowed or your shoulders. So then it's just relaxing your whole physical body when you have the ability to do this in the moment.” - Lisa (10:07)
Discover from Lisa how adding mindfulness and meditation into your everyday routine can help you see things differently and experience general emotional development.
“It's giving yourself compassion around your anxiety. We compound everything. We feel anxiety, and then we get mad at ourselves for feeling anxiety, or we feel, you know, like annoyed or stressed. And then it's like, what do you have to be stressed about? You should be so good. You know, it's like we compound it by judging ourselves for our negative emotions.” - Lisa (13:19)
Find out the deep insights Lisa shares as she explores how these transformational strategies act as triggers for you to re-establish a deep connection with yourself. Learn more about how mindfulness and meditation help you distinguish between the critical and loving voices inside of you.
“Our negative emotions are just human. They're beautiful, and they're there because of something that took place. And it's okay. And we just have to love ourselves through it.” - Lisa (13:34)
The Path to True Happiness: "We have to learn how to have the peace, the joy, the calm in our inner landscape, and then that energy goes out and so effortlessly starts changing everything in our external landscape." - Lisa (16:50)
One of the standout segments in this episode is Lisa’s advice on discerning between conditioned wants and what your soul truly desires. This guidance is a game-changer for anyone feeling unfulfilled, despite ticking off all the metaphorical boxes of success. Lisa passionately emphasizes aligning your actions with what genuinely brings you fulfillment.
“It's really just, again, getting some discernment between the voices in our head like that super loud voice of our inner critic and that ticker tape that's constantly going by. We have to be able to quiet that to hear the little bit more sensitive, delicate voice behind it.” - Lisa (20:30)
Learn self-compassion techniques. Be gentle with yourself. Recognize and release negative thoughts, and practice self-compassion to overcome past conditioning and emotional pain.
“Hear the voice in your head, take some distance to, to watch the thoughts that are going by. We bring so much additional interior muck into our worlds with that voice in our heads, which goes on to create all these problems that we have out here. The whole game of whack a mole could basically be avoided if we would learn to be more compassionate with ourselves and not let our thoughts take us down all these dark roads.” - Lisa (27:55)
In this episode:
(00:34) - Introduction of the guest, Lisa McCourt
(07:13) - Discussion on taking pauses and managing stress
(09:39) - Coping mechanisms for disturbances
(11:03) - Effective tools for anxiety and overwhelm
(13:06) - Being comfortable with fear
(14:58) - The gifts of living in joy and bliss
(17:02) - The power of practicing self-refrain
(17:44) - Conclusion on personal mastery
(17:59) - Inner Consciousness and Happiness
(18:13) - Experience of Silent Retreat
(18:40) - Impact of Silent Retreat and Personal Growth
(19:12) - Conditioned Wants vs Soul Wants
(20:19) - Pleasure and Chores vs Inner Calling
(21:55) - Self-Care and Importance of Balance in Life
(24:12) - Overcoming Life's Challenges and Discovering Authentic Self
(27:30) - Emphasizing Self-love and Self-compassion
Resources and Links
52 Weeks of Hope
About Lisa McCourt
Lisa McCourt is the author of "Free Your Joy: The 12 Keys to Sustainable Happiness" and dozens of other books about love and joy that have together sold over 9 million copies. She's also the host of the popular "Do Joy!" podcast and the founder of Joy School, where she's taught the secrets of joy to thousands of learners for over two decades. Incorporating techniques from studying with and writing for many of the biggest names in the transformation world, Lisa's trainings provide the most effective, streamlined processes available for accessing and maintaining consistent, authentic joy and inner peace.
Lisa McCourt’s Social Media
Lisa McCourt - Website
Lisa McCourt - Instagram
Lisa McCourt - Facebook
Lisa McCourt - LinkedIn
Lisa McCourt - X
Lisa McCourt - Book
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If you're feeling overwhelmed by fear, yet you sense a deeper calling from your soul’s desires, then this episode is for you! Tune in as Lauren and Lisa guide you through:
Facing fear and finding purpose
The importance of self-compassion
Managing stored emotional pain
Listening to inner wisdom
Dealing with anxiety and overwhelm
If you’re ready to:
Embrace fear and potential growth
Focus on inner peace
Start a self-care routine amidst a busy life
Discover your authentic purpose
…then this episode is for you!
Key takeaways
“Being afraid is totally cool. You know? I would definitely say just love that fear. That fear means that, oh, there's something potentially big and juicy in front of me here.” - Lisa (15:06)
“We have to learn how to have the peace, the joy, the calm in our inner landscape, and then that energy goes out and so effortlessly starts changing everything in our external landscape” - Lisa (16:50)
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Lauren Abrams [00:00:00]:
Are you a burnt-out overachiever buried in responsibilities? Do you miss laughing with your friends, just laughing from the gut? Do you feel like life's passing you by? If you've been wishing for some kind of shift, you're in the right place. Welcome to 52 Weeks of Hope, the show where we take you off the hamster wheel by ditching your to-do list for the to-don't list. This is where you learn how to make that lonely egg vanish. Learn self-compassion techniques and give yourself grace. I'm Lauren Abrams, and I get to help you feel that magic again since going through my dark night of the soul so you can learn from my experience and the mentors and experts I meet along the way. And today, we're talking to the author, inspirational leader, and advocate for joy, Lisa McCourt. Are you exhausted by everything going on? Who isn't? Right? What if it's all meant as some opportunity for you to increase your level of consciousness and capacity for joy? Lisa's a joy trainer and is here giving you soul cures and tools to give yourself not only grace and to give yourself the compassion you deserve you also get to transform these times into a spiritual transformation and generate joy from the celebrated Joy School guru herself. Welcome to 52 weeks of hope to who is.
Lauren Abrams [00:01:14]:
Hope and joy.
Lisa McCourt [00:01:16]:
Yeah. That was fun. I'm so happy to be with you.
Lauren Abrams [00:01:20]:
I'm so excited to meet you, and mutual friend said, oh, you have to meet Lisa. And I start reading about you. I'm like, oh my gosh. I can't wait to meet you. You vibrate clearly at a very high frequency. And I I just love so much on your website. Peace and bliss for ourselves and others. I believe we're here to use whatever superpowers we've been given for the upliftment, betterment, and delight of all.
Lauren Abrams [00:01:47]:
I love that. You're doing it. Yeah. That's 52 weeks of hope. You've written so many books, and you've done so many things. I always like to hear, well, how did you come to this place? Then you've been doing it a long time. Maybe you were born here, and you've always been here, and you've been here your whole life, but that certainly isn't my story, and it isn't everybody's. So I'm always so curious how people, like, got the begin their journey.
Lisa McCourt [00:02:15]:
Yeah. Going back to, like, how we were born so often when I talk to beautiful, light hearted souls like yourself, there's a, oh, yeah, me too around just feeling like an alien in the world growing up. My sensitivities, my proclivities, the way I saw things and understood things just felt like I was completely alone on this planet of others. You know? And then we we go on in our journey, and I always say my very, very, very first glimpse that there was, like, other people like me. Somehow at age 14, I got my hands on a Wayne Dyer book. It was his very first book. That's how old I am. Your erroneous zones, I did not even have a clue as to the wordplay he was going for there with that title.
Lisa McCourt [00:02:57]:
But in my little 14 year old diary, I just copied pages and pages and pages of that book, and I know that that was the beginning of what became just like a lifelong passion. After I exhausted, you know, Wayne Dyer. I found out, oh, this just represents a whole category of books and teachers and understandings that I could explore. And I went on to study Buddhism in comparison religion in college and and get as much as I could in the background of the Vedic teachings and the Buddha Gita and just loved all of that. Did transcendental meditation for a long time. My day job was in publishing, so that was great. But people didn't know. You know, I I I still have, like, the double life for a long time because
Lauren Abrams [00:03:39]:
That's so funny. You were, like, quiet. It was kinda dusty. Like I
Lisa McCourt [00:03:42]:
didn't have any friends who shared my interests at all back then. And then I I think I was mentioning to you, I had written some, children's books early in my career that had become very popular, and I have a lot of opportunities to go speak at conferences and schools and events. And I always got in under the guise of creativity because that's what people expect an author to come talk about. But it would be just, like, you know, 5 minutes talking about creativity the way people expected me to, and then I'd get into creating yourself and creating your relationships and creating your life through all these spiritual and metaphysical principles that I was in love with. And that's how it started was back then because I would have, you know, kids sessions and adult sessions, and then some of the adults would like, oh, have you read this? Have you done this? And I started building community. And that was over 2 decades ago, and I just fell in love with, you know, any any position I can play on this team. I've always said I write books. I ghostwrite for other thought leaders and and teachers, and I teach myself.
Lisa McCourt [00:04:40]:
And whatever I can do to be an effective member on the team that's spreading awareness of these principles, that lights me up, and I'm doing a good job then.
Lauren Abrams [00:04:50]:
I thought it was really interesting, the ghostwriting. I I know nothing about that. Is that just famous people that need you to write for them? I mean, that's what it sounds like.
Lisa McCourt [00:05:01]:
Yeah. I think that, you know, for the kind of of information that we like to impart, there's not really a program for it at any top university teachers out there with amazing programs. Typically, in the ghostwriting situation, it would be they already have a large following in place because publishers just kinda require that these days. So they've got the teachings. They've got a large following. They've got 1,000,000,000 of hours of them doing workshops or TED Talks or leading, you know, things where they're on stages, but they don't have a book. And maybe they don't have a writing talent. Not everybody has all the talents.
Lisa McCourt [00:05:43]:
Right? But a book is sort of what's needed to elevate them to be someone credentialed in in this field. So that's where I would come in, usually through the publisher, and I would write their book based on all of their material.
Lauren Abrams [00:05:57]:
And then how did joy become, like, your specialty, so to speak? And you have a whole school of joy, which how can it get better than that? That's a very high vibrating frequency. So
Lisa McCourt [00:06:08]:
I think I settled on that word again about 2 decades ago. I was writing my Hay House book, and I wanted it to be a bridge brand. I didn't want it to be come learn how to live a spiritual life. You know, there are a lot of of authors who stay in that lane, and I love that lane. And I I recognize that there's a divide, and there are a lot of people who are just never gonna look at a book like that who would really, really benefit from looking at a book like that. So somehow I settled on that word joy as being, this is the promise. This is the promise. If you learn to, you know, do these new things with your brain that you've never done before and do the practice of the skills so that your brain isn't leading the show, you have joy in your life.
Lisa McCourt [00:06:52]:
It's just the natural expression of who we are behind all of that busy thought activity. And and I just have always had, that somehow in the name of whatever I'm doing, joy. Okay.
Lauren Abrams [00:07:04]:
So I've really been on even a mission, so to speak, in the last few months of taking a pause. It's the breath, getting off that hamster wheel of, you know, the busy, busy, busy. And I'm gonna speak now to moms. I'm sure you know plenty of them with with the kids, and they're working and they're this and they're that. And, look. I was one. It's a single mom working, and it it took actual physical challenge where my life was almost at stake. And I was like, I don't know if I have time to go to the emergency room and take care of myself.
Lauren Abrams [00:07:38]:
I have to be in court. I have my kid. The kids were tight a little and everything else. And I actually was, like, at a crossroads. Do I go to the emergency room, or do I go to the office? Because I don't really have time. And that was my wake up call. And that's when I started taking quarterly long weekends for myself and covering the kids, and it's when I discovered meditation. It's when I discovered breath.
Lauren Abrams [00:07:59]:
It's when I discovered the pause. And taking that breath at everything. It could be 5 minutes. It could be and getting on the floor and playing with your kids. And you don't have to have kids, but it's answers emerge in the pause and how to get that message out. How do you take a pause and how do you teach that?
Lisa McCourt [00:08:19]:
That's a beautiful question. And it's true that very often, right in the thick of your day when you most need the pause, it's just not gonna be feasible. But you make a note of that, and you make sure to revisit it. We we do a lot of work in Joy School with our our triggers, with the the stored pockets of pain that we all accrue. Right? When we are young, impressionable, vulnerable little beings, things happen that we're we don't have the bandwidth to process. Right? Emotion is meant to flow through us and be released. And when we have traumatic situations or little t traumas, it doesn't have to be what we think of as traumas. We store away these little pockets.
Lisa McCourt [00:08:56]:
The Vedic term is samskaras. Eckhart Kalyi calls it the pain body. It's these little energy blobs in us, and that's what's between us and our joy. Right? That's what's between the consciousness where we are joy and love at our core. So we're out there doing our day, and somebody says something or just gives us a look or steps toward us or away from us in a way that matches the vibration, the frequency of one of these stored pockets of pain from our past. And we feel that whoosh of annoyance or disturbance or embarrassment or whatever whoosh we're feeling in our day. And one of our our tools that we do in joy school is we we have 4 mantras, and you have to, like, preprogram your consciousness to know what they all are in the moment. But it's like you have a thought and you recognize because, first, we become very skilled observers of our thoughts.
Lisa McCourt [00:09:50]:
You recognize, okay. This is an unhelpful, unbeneficial thought. So it's catch and release for the thought. You gotta catch the thought and release it. But that's not enough because if that's all we did, we'd still keep having this happen. So we touch and release, and then it's a relax and release. Because when we have these triggers happen, the tendency is to tense up either our physical bodies or just our energetic body. And, usually, you can feel somewhere in your physical body got tense, whether your brow furrowed or your shoulders.
Lisa McCourt [00:10:18]:
So then it's just relaxing your whole physical body when you have the ability to do this in the moment, and that allows the stored energy in there to move. It gives it space. It gives it an opening, and you might feel a wish of of sadness or vulnerability or tenderness because it's been in there a long time and it's old. And but that's what allows it to move out is if in the moment we catch the thought, release the thought, and then relax and release. And then to center ourselves back in our day, we say, I am love, which is just remembering the truth of who we are, and I am here now. And the more we do it, it's a practice, and it's not easy at first, but, I mean, my joy schoolers for decades have done this and just it changes everything. The more we can, in the moment, catch it. And if you can't catch it in the moment, you just make a note.
Lisa McCourt [00:11:09]:
Oh, that guy in the elevator bugged me. Let me look at that later and see if I can just be in my own body and and let some of that release. Because that's when everything stops triggering us is when we release those toxins.
Lauren Abrams [00:11:23]:
So somebody that's here, they need a tool that may be a bit more advanced even. So what could they do when they're like, oh, I just feel anxious. Okay. Let's go with that. I'm feeling anxious. I'm not sure what triggered it even. What are some tools that they could do?
Lisa McCourt [00:11:40]:
Right. So if you notice you're feeling anxious and you overwhelmed. Yeah. Yeah. Overwhelmed. And and you have the luxury of, like, you're not in a meeting with people. What do you notice this? I didn't really set up our our thing very well just now, but it's about the full, full knowledge and recognition. And we do this just through lots of kind of repetition and hearing about it through a lot of different sources.
Lisa McCourt [00:12:03]:
Recognition that this is not about what's in the moment. This is about something that I experienced a long time ago. This is stored within me. And then often, you you don't have to have the memory. You don't have to know what stored it. But if you can recognize, okay, I am pure joy and love and confidence, let's call it. Like, you know, there there's nothing disturbing my soul. Nothing is disturbing my soul back there.
Lisa McCourt [00:12:29]:
So the fact that I'm having this disturbance right now, this anxiety, something happened that I was not able to program when I was at a really tender young age, and then you can actually sit and do reparenting work with yourself. You can just imagine that child. You don't have to know how old or what was going on. Just really recognize within yourself that that there was somebody who passed this anxiety onto you unwittingly, you know, without meaning any harm. We learned it from our parents. We learned it from our caregivers. We hear something about the world. We all are carrying around such a convoluted filter of beliefs about how it is out there that has nothing to do with who we truly are.
Lisa McCourt [00:13:06]:
It's all been just passed on and inherited and accumulated somewhere along the way. So you sit and you do inner reparenting work, and, you know, we have a much longer protocol for that in trade school. But, basically, it's giving yourself compassion around your anxiety. We compound everything. We feel anxiety, and then we get mad at ourselves for feeling anxiety, or we feel, you know, like, annoyed or stressed. And then it's like, what do you have to be stressed about? You should be so good. You know? It's like we compound it by judging ourselves for our negative emotions. Our negative emotions are just human.
Lisa McCourt [00:13:36]:
They're beautiful, and they're there because of something that that took place. And it's okay, and we just have to love ourselves through it.
Lauren Abrams [00:13:43]:
Yeah. Definitely. Can't play judge and jury. It you you're always gonna lose when you do that.
Lisa McCourt [00:13:49]:
Definitely. Call it the second arrow. It's like we have the arrow of whatever initially was harming us, but then we harm ourselves by judging it or judging our reaction to it or feeling like it shouldn't have happened, and it's just, another arrow.
Lauren Abrams [00:14:03]:
Do you have certain things that you do on a daily basis? Do you meditate? Do you journal? Yeah.
Lisa McCourt [00:14:10]:
I'm not journaling currently, but I've journaled all my life on and off. That's been a a really, really important practice for me. I journal when there's something up that I'm trying to figure out, whether it's a career move or, you know, whatever it is. I'll journal to get really some clarity around the different thoughts and ideas going on there. But journaling, again, it's it, like, brings you into the mind, and I'm much more about listening to that, like, inner wisdom now that's behind the mind. So I think I've put aside journaling a little bit for that reason that I I just wanna know what's what's behind, like, your little whisper that you have to silence all the other voices to hear.
Lauren Abrams [00:14:47]:
Yeah. Definitely. So somebody who is they know they're not aligned with who and what they're really here to be, but they're afraid to take that leap or they're not even clear what it is, but they know they're not doing what it is. What would you tell them if they're just afraid?
Lisa McCourt [00:15:06]:
Being afraid is is totally cool. You know? I would definitely, like, say just love love that fear. That fear means that, oh, there's something potentially big and juicy in front of me here. Of course, there's gonna be fear then. We do things in Joy School where we look back and list all the times that we've been afraid, especially if it's, like, at the precipice of something new like you're describing. And, you know, how long did that fear last, and what was the outcome of that fear? And looking back, was there any reason to fear? And, you know, we can play with our minds. I I I always say let's use our minds to get on board with something, but then it's about, like, feeling. We change our energy with our feelings, not with our thoughts.
Lisa McCourt [00:15:44]:
So we can just sort of train our minds to do the thing we needed to do to get us to the feeling that we wanna get to. And you've probably heard energy, your fear and the energy of excitement are really close in terms of, like, the chemicals that are released in the body and the, you know, composition of the energy itself. So it's it's flipping that switch from fear to excitement.
Lauren Abrams [00:16:04]:
You talk about learn all the gifts you receive from living in joy and bliss from today forward. So somebody is like, what are you talking about? What kind of gifts? What would you tell them?
Lisa McCourt [00:16:15]:
I think that once we recognize that we really do, and this is hard for a lot of people to hear, but we really do create most of our own suffering, then the gift is you're not suffering anymore. And I always say in in Joy School, we travel 2 parallel paths. We're gonna learn the art and skill of inner peace and happiness, And everybody is conditioned to think once they get that partner or that job or that paycheck or that degree, then I can be happy. We're we're used to looking at all the things out there to make us have the happy feeling inside. It's a backwards equation. We have to learn how to have the peace, the joy, the calm in our inner landscape, and then that energy goes out and so effortlessly starts changing everything in our external landscape. So if we have to use that as the carrot for doing the kind of hard spiritual practices, because it's not easy. Right? Spiritual practices, it's a discipline.
Lisa McCourt [00:17:10]:
Right? I mean, Buddhist would teach, like, fasting or refraining from talking, not because food is bad or talking is bad, but when you have an impulse to do this thing, don't do it. And that's how we train ourselves and and we train up our our consciousness to recognize, hey. I've fasted or I did that silent meditation retreat. I can do this. And the big this is take control of the thoughts that are going
Lisa McCourt [00:17:35]:
past our brain, because it's so we've chunned them, and that's what our society does. So it's kind of a a hard skill to master. I'm not gonna say, you know, it it's easy. It's kind of hard, but the gifts are you feel so good. And so Oh, yeah. At least from that, you know, feeling at the mercy of things out there and the mercy of your mind. You're above all of that. You're so much bigger than all of that.
Lisa McCourt [00:18:00]:
And once you rest into that part of your consciousness, life is joy. And as an extra little carrot bonus, everything out there starts rearranging itself too to reflect that inner landscape.
Lauren Abrams [00:18:12]:
So true. My first silent retreat after I I I it was 7 days And I thought, oh, I'm gonna write so much. Like, no no journaling. And I knew I there was no phone. Once I got to the end, people left. A few people, not a lot. But, like, I started crying. Like, I did it.
Lauren Abrams [00:18:32]:
It was the most incredible thing. Somebody like me not talking for 7 days. But when when it was over, I just brushed out crying that I had done it. Did
Lisa McCourt [00:18:40]:
you feel different afterwards since you Oh my
Lauren Abrams [00:18:42]:
gosh. Yeah. Yeah. A snack. Oh, I still do. I, like, I get I'm getting, like, all, like, teary eyed thinking about it, and I can't wait. I'm going on another one soon. Yeah.
Lauren Abrams [00:18:50]:
Now I love silent retreats that I need it. It, like, feeds my soul, but I'll never forget the first one. It was an incredible experience. So how do you know what your superpower is when there's so many shiny objects everywhere and there's so much calling for your attention? How do you just stay kind of focused on what you're doing?
Lisa McCourt [00:19:11]:
Right. I think that one of the best discernments is what are my conditioned wants versus my soul wants? Because we are told like, you and I have our own businesses, for example. We are very much inundated in our culture. You have a business. You should want to grow your business. You want your business to make more money. You wanna have more employees. You wanna do more with your business.
Lisa McCourt [00:19:36]:
So I'm I'm inundated with, like, emails and and messages, like, people wanting to help me grow my business. I know that my soul isn't really all that interested in growing my business. I like my business the way it is. I like my work life balance. I like that I have the freedom to follow what feels more like a soul calling than a conditioned want. Right? That can be really eye opening when when people really look at, okay. Do I do I really wanna get married and have babies just because my mom's been talking about it since I was 2? You know, like, maybe I don't. And we can make lists about, like, when your mind is just your own, when you're falling asleep at night and and something lights you up, like, what is that thought? Where is that taking you? You know, what in your day as you're going down your checklist, what feels like a chore to do? Where's that leading versus what's like a real pleasure to do, where's that leading.
Lisa McCourt [00:20:28]:
And to me, it's it's really just, again, getting some discernment between the voices in our head, like that that super loud voice of our inner critic and that ticker tape that's constantly going by. We have to be able to quiet that to hear the little bit more more sensitive, delicate voice behind it. That's our soul's voice.
Lauren Abrams [00:20:48]:
Yeah. No. I love that. That's the whole answer is emerge in the pause. It's not settling. It's doing what's right for you.
Lisa McCourt [00:20:54]:
Absolutely. One of my kids has chosen a a very normal path. She's getting her medical degree. I have no doubt she's gonna go have, you know, what our society considers a really great life. Right? She's gonna do all the things. She's gonna get married. She's gonna have babies. She's gonna have
Lauren Abrams [00:21:11]:
a great career. I just you know, this
Lisa McCourt [00:21:12]:
is what she's always it's been her personality. It's what she's all about. My other child, no. She's got a soul calling that is so off the beaten path and I don't know what exactly it's gonna look like, but I have to just relax and rest and her life is gonna be very different from my other daughter's life. And as long as she's happy and doing what is calling to her and following her soul, I am a 1000% behind that because if she tried to do what my other daughter's doing, she'd be miserable.
Lauren Abrams [00:21:46]:
Whenever I start thinking I want something anything, I remind myself happy and balanced is what I wanted for my kids and to be present for their life. That's it. And self care matters. I mean, it just matters so much these days and taking that time for yourself and self compassion. So how do you do that for yourself? Because balance matters, and you've written 9 books. You have all kinds of workshops. You travel. You have your kids and your family.
Lauren Abrams [00:22:14]:
So how do you make sure that you maintain balance?
Lisa McCourt [00:22:19]:
I learned a while ago that I am a person who requires a large amount of solitude. I have a beautiful naturey backyard that if I don't spend my hours a day in solitude, then I'm a little bit off. And, of course, there are times when I can't and I'm, you know, traveling, doing work things, and it's a lot of on, but I will decline dinner invitations. I will decline fun things so that I can have that just that time in my quiet sound, my meditation space. That's where I go to recharge. And it doesn't take a lot. I don't need bubble baths or, you know, like, the the whole, whole gamut of self care routine. I just need quiet and solitude to go within and restore.
Lauren Abrams [00:23:01]:
What are some of the best messages that you've received? Like, who are your mentors? Who do you turn to? What do you do?
Lisa McCourt [00:23:06]:
Oh, that's such a fun question. Yeah. I feel so blessed by community in this latter part of my life, the last, you know, 10 10 years plus or so. Because it really used to feel like if there was one person in my life who I felt got me or saw me or understood me, that was like a miracle. And now I did, like, built this amazing bubble. Right? It feels like a bubble in our little world when when all my friends are like you and wanna talk about the things I wanna talk about. God, our our mutual friend, it's is a dear, dear soul brother of mine, Scott Stabil. Jacob, you mentioned, has also been a long, long, long time brother.
Lisa McCourt [00:23:45]:
My my teaching partner now, Chris Niebauer, who wrote no self, no problem, how neuropsychology is catching up with the brain is fascinating fascinating. All this science to shore up all the stuff that I've always taught. He and I always talk for hours and hours. I have, you know, girlfriends who do similar work that I do. I'm just really, really blessed with community now, and it feels like a huge blessing.
Lauren Abrams [00:24:08]:
Oh, I love that. That's just so good. Your vibe attracts your tribe. So what is the hardest challenge that you've overcome, and how did you do it?
Lisa McCourt [00:24:17]:
You know, I have so many friends with these, like, great stories where, like, the external had just crumbled and they're, like, phoenix from the ashes, and I don't really feel that I have that. I look back and I feel like my life has been a series of microawakenings. And my most, you know, painful times were really internal painful times because I was conditioned from a really early age to smile and be pleasing and make everything nice for everyone around me and don't have needs and don't express what might be better for you and just please, please, please, please, please, everybody. That felt like a matter of survival in my formative years, so I carried that through my young adulthood. And so I found myself in a lot of, you know, situations you mentioned about, like, how your vibration attracts your relationships. I've had 2 marriages that went south, but it was because we attract puzzle pieces. Right? We attract you know, if you're an over giver, you're gonna attract an overtaker. And so much of my very, very, very much I'm here to just do anything to make you happy based left me super, super depleted and and really unhappy inside.
Lisa McCourt [00:25:25]:
I don't think I even knew that was the case. And just it was really for me through teachers and books. That's why I'm so passionate about teaching and writing that I started to see to realize how unhappy I was in these different situations in my earlier life. And only when I you know, I guess that's what I always talk about. We have to change the internal landscape to create differently out on the exterior. Once I changed all that up, yes, the husband that I attracted and the the relationships with my friends and peers and my career, everything just is a 1000% different than the life I used to live. I was great at inauthentic happiness. I think I always looked happy, but really good at that.
Lauren Abrams [00:26:08]:
Yeah. Everything's fine. Everything's fine. That's where I grew up. Everything's fine. We didn't talk about our feelings. I always check that I I have to Google feelings chart sometimes to be like, oh, there's so many of them. I don't have to as much anymore, but, like, early on.
Lauren Abrams [00:26:21]:
Yeah. That's a lot through marriages to get, and they'll learn how to be your authentic self and have to wear the mask. And Oh
Lisa McCourt [00:26:31]:
my gosh.
Lauren Abrams [00:26:33]:
And to change it completely and to peel away the layers of I think that's a lot. Yeah. Phoenix coming off the mat. Just
Lisa McCourt [00:26:45]:
or
Lauren Abrams [00:26:45]:
or in Scott's case, to have both your parents, like, you know, at 14 taken. And, yeah, I mean, you don't need that kind of like, nobody goes through life unscathed.
Lisa McCourt [00:26:56]:
Right. It's obvious, and for others, you you can't see it. You can't
Lauren Abrams [00:27:00]:
see what's
Lisa McCourt [00:27:00]:
going on inside them.
Lauren Abrams [00:27:02]:
I mean, there's a reason authentic was the word of the year last year. Right? I don't think anyone wants to talk about the weather or, you know, it just gets old. Once we learn, then we get to teach those like coming behind us. And, you know, like, that's kind of how it works. So it's probably why you're so successful at what you're doing. Do you have a message of hope you wanna give? A message of hope. Yes.
Lisa McCourt [00:27:30]:
I feel like when I'm left to just like sort of have one one sort of like parting thought, there's this term and we've touched on it with self care and and I feel like it's become so cliche, this idea about self love, but it really is if if you're if you're just gonna focus on one part of all this, just one thing, just find a way to learn to be more compassionate with yourself. I mean, I'm saying this to your your listeners now. Just, like, hear the voice in your head. Take some distance to to watch the thoughts that are going by. We bring so much additional interior muck into our worlds with that voice in our heads, which goes on to create all these problems that we have out here. The whole game of whack a mole could basically be avoided if we would learn to be more compassionate with ourselves and not let our thoughts take us down all these dark roads. And, you know, it's gonna be different for everybody. Got, like, a 1000000 tools for an Android school, but there's no one size fits all because we're all sort of hard on ourselves in different ways, and it always seems legitimate.
Lisa McCourt [00:28:32]:
You know? We always feel like, you know, oh, don't tell me I'm not a failure. I can look out at my life and point to this and this and this and this and show you why I'm a failure. And it's about recognizing that all of those things, all that evidence you're pointing to, just arose from this belief that got lodged in there somewhere about you being a failure. It's not true. It never was true. It's a belief that you absorbed, that you went on to create from and form a life around. It's not you. You know? So we have to we have to be compassionate with ourselves.
Lauren Abrams [00:29:05]:
I love that. And as Lisa's talking, for anybody who's listening, not watching, which I think most people, Lisa keeps putting her hand on her heart, and that's very much an act of self compassion when you do that. You breathe and put your hand on your heart. I love that. That is so great. Lisa's author of free your joy as well as many other books, and she has all kinds of programs. And, of course, it's Joy School, and we have all her links and everything else below. And she's got all kinds of programs that are amazing.
Lauren Abrams [00:29:34]:
So is there anything else I didn't ask you that I should have asked you? And we'll be done. You'll be like, Lauren didn't ask me this.
Lisa McCourt [00:29:41]:
No. I love everything Lauren than ask me.
Lauren Abrams [00:29:44]:
Okay. Okay. Good. Well, this has been so great. Thank you so much for being a guest today. I'm 52 Weeks of Hope. Thank you for having me. I'd
Lisa McCourt [00:29:52]:
love every moment.
Lauren Abrams [00:29:54]:
I hope you enjoyed this week's episode and take with you the messages of self compassion, self honesty, and self confidence. Clearly, it's a week to give yourself a break and are such great messages to take into your week ahead to give yourself that grace. And I hope you enjoyed the conversation as much as we did. If you're having any thoughts or questions or if you just wanna say hello, I'd love to hear from you. I'm so grateful to you for listening as the 200th episode approaches. I really wanna express my gratitude to you for listening and cheering me on. It means the world to me, and I don't take it for granted for even a second. And I also wanna give a shout out to the team who produces and edits and does so much for 52 weeks of hope behind the scenes.
Lauren Abrams [00:30:37]:
They're amazing. And if you have or wanna start a podcast, Podify is your team to go to. Remember, you can always catch up on previous episodes and stay connected with me on social media. Instagram is the one I look at the most at YouTube, or just go to the website at 52 weeks of hope.com and join the 52 weeks of hope community. Be sure to tune in next week for an amazing episode. It's all about finding inspiration, powerful lessons to overcome self doubt, and finding your authentic purpose. It's an amazing episode. It has for you to take with you to just get on your own authentic path.
Lauren Abrams [00:31:14]:
I'm in the middle of a rebrand, and I'm open to suggestions from you for new podcast names. And I'm kinda liking these right now, and I'm completely open and would love your feedback. Let me know if you like any of them. Right now, I'm thinking of how do you like these? Reset and recharge, beyond burnout, or radical pause, or power of pause. Do you like any of those? I would love to hear your thoughts. Again, I'm Lauren Abrams. I really appreciate you listening, and I'll be back next week with an amazing episode. I'm so excited for you to hear it.