Hi there and a very warm welcome to Season 5 Episode 45 of People Soup – it’s Ross McIntosh here. 

P Soupers - here's the second part of my chat with Michaela Thomas. Michaela is s senior clinical psychologist, CBT psychotherapist, author, award winning podcaster and corporate speaker. Michaela is currently one of 8 nominees for the Inspirational Modern Woman of the year award - I've voted already and if you like what you hear - you can vote too here or via the link in the show notes.

One of her most recent initiatives is that she is facilitating and curating a group coaching program called Burn Bright. A transformational group coaching for the ambitious working woman who needs to be nicer to herself and calm the overwhelm. And if that sounds interesting - listen on - Michaela is open about her life experience and how she supports others - you'll find more details of the Burn Bright Programme in the shownotes.

In this episode you'll hear about the evolution of Michaela's practice as a psychologist. Including her training in Sweden, the dark side of caring for others and the inner work she's undertaken to realise that she matters too. You'll also hear about when she discovered ACT and how she's uses her extensive, evidence based toolkit in her client work.

• Vote for Michaela here! The Modern Woman Inspiration Award - VOTE | Modern Woman
• Michaela on LinkedIn
• Michaela on X
• Michaela on Instagram
• The Thomas Connection on Facebook
• The Pause Purpose Play Podcast
• Home - The Thomas Connection
• Read all about Michaela's Burn Bright Programme

People Soup is an award winning podcast where we share evidence based behavioural science, in a way that’s practical, accessible and fun. We're all about sharing the ingredients for a better work life from behavioural science and beyond.

There is a transcript for each episode. There is a caveat - this transcript is largely generated by Artificial Intelligence, I have corrected many errors but I won't have captured them all! You can also find the shownotes by clicking on notes then keep scrolling for all the useful links.

You can find all the details of my ACT in the Workplace Train the Trainer Program over on our partner's website, Contextual Consulting.

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PART TWO

[00:00:00] Ross: Hi there and a very warm welcome to season 5 episode 45 of PeopleSoup. It's Ross McIntosh here.

[00:00:16] I deserve to be well

[00:00:38] Just, I deserve to be well. Full stop. And that was the final piece that needed to click in. And I wrote about it in my book that came out three years ago. I wrote it because I thought it, and intellectually I was there, but I didn't quite feel it.

[00:01:07] Michaela is currently one of eight nominees for the Inspirational Modern Woman of the Year Award. I've voted already and if you like what you hear, you can vote too via the link in the show notes.

[00:01:35] Michaela is open about her life experience, and how she supports others. And you'll find more details of the Burn Bright program in the show notes. In this episode, you'll hear about the evolution of Michaela's practice as a psychologist, including her training in Sweden, the dark side of caring for others, And the inner work she's undertaken to realize that she matters too.

[00:02:32]

[00:02:38] Claire Stafford on Facebook said, Listen to this on my dog walk today. Loved Michaela's take on showing up authentically and how she balances her personal and professional self whilst being true to herself and those around her.

[00:03:08] So please get your reviews coming in. The bookmarks will be dispatched by our Global Distribution Center, which is led by my dad, Big G in the Northeast Powerhouse. So for now, get a brew on, and have a listen to part two of my chat with Michaela Thomas.

[00:03:43] And

[00:04:03] And I still remember when I look back at those memories, the. The salient pieces of those memories is how much I felt her emotion and how I felt for her. So we took her in for a week, she was having a hard time and fast forward to today when we're, you know, 40 year old women with a couple of kids each.

[00:04:41] Obviously, I moved countries. She didn't follow. I don't know what's her problem. Um, she's still in Sweden. But that has been sort of a path, not only into my professional career of, you know, getting into the psychologist training when I was 19 in Sweden, but it's also followed who I am as a person. And that's also been the biggest Achilles heel I have.

[00:05:22] Giving to others and giving to myself

[00:05:54] I crumbled

[00:06:14] And I couldn't meet my child's. emotional and physical needs. He had lots of allergies, reflux, lots of physical pain, eczema, he was scratching himself red raw every night, he didn't sleep, he was having a really hard time, bless him. And I was then having a really hard time. I think the phrase is, you're only as happy as your saddest child.

[00:07:30] I matter too

[00:07:51] I matter too. And when I am well, they are more likely to be well. When I am well, my business is more likely to be well. When I am well, [00:08:00] all is well in the world, in my inner world. And I'm in the best place I've been for many, many years, because it feels like the things are finally slotted into. And my work has then become a lot better.

[00:08:40] I lean in, I lean out, I lean in, I lean out I lean in to work. Oh, this is exciting. I want to do that. No, I'm overwhelmed I lean out again, and I take a break. So I hope that that makes sense that this is not You know, like Joe Wicks says, the overnight success that was seven years in the making, that's kind of what it is.

[00:09:19] Ross: It takes work, it takes inner work and reflection and spaciousness, it's a word we're going to use a lot I'm sure today, that spaciousness to help you reflect and the courage again to, to make those changes in your life and realize that you are important as well a way to balance this more effectively which then ripples out and impacts on you.

[00:09:45] Michaela: Yeah, but even softening that kind of narrative there of, you know, look after yourself so that you can look after your children. I think we really have to be careful with that so that doesn't become another lesson or learning that I can only look after myself as a conditional [00:10:00] thing so that I can look after them.

[00:10:02] Michaela: That's the bit that was the permission piece that was missing for me. I got it, I had got as far as that a few years ago, but it took a while before I got to the point where I realized, Oh, it's not just a look after. Myself, so I can be a better mother. I look after myself because I deserve to be well. In itself, without any achievement of who I am as a parent, who I am as a business owner, who I am as a friend.

[00:10:45] I think intellectually that of course I deserve to do well, of course I deserve a break. But my work often shows that it's needing that to sink down to the emotional level, the heart level, is the biggest piece of work we do. This is why there's such a rinse and repeat kind of pattern to the work I do with high perfectionistic, high striving women.

[00:11:23] I am lovable. I can act as if I deserve to be well. And what are the things I would be doing? What are the things I would be doing more of? Well, what are the things I would be inviting into my life as a practice? What would I welcome into my life? If I thought, as a thought experiment, hypothetically, what if I was actually deserving to be well?

[00:12:11] And, you know, bureaucracy. So lovely, lovely, isn't it? So it took me two years to get my psychologist accreditation, recognized, even though I was a fully qualified clinical psychologist when I came from Sweden. So I had to start at the bottom of the ladder again. And I was a trainee CBT therapist who already had full qualifications in CBT.

[00:12:56] So there is a lot of CBT flowing through my veins, but they've always been a lot more third wave. Always been a lot more act. And obviously, Uh, about a decade or so ago, I added CFT to my bow as well. It might have been 12 years, maybe. So, compassion focused therapy is also something I practice a lot. And both of those are very hard to do for others if you don't do for yourself.

[00:14:07] I'm too much and I'm not enough

[00:14:32] Oh, I'm not enough and I'm too much. Especially the ADHD women I support. I'm too much and I'm not enough at the same time. So they were already really well clued up on their excesses and their deficits. They're not great at the, what are you already doing well? And it might have been that, although they're trying to reduce their people pleasing behaviours, or they're trying to reduce their self critical behaviour, or they're trying to increase their, um, boundary setting, um, you know, to kind of set boundaries with others to say no, well, there might be lots of things they're trying to increase or decrease.

[00:15:23] I'm gonna say a, a rude word now, sometimes it is referred to as wanky wellness, because it's stuff that is just, you know, because it become trendy and You know, the, the TikTok things of like, this girl can, and all of these things that show someone who has privilege, who has infinite time on, on their hands and money, and they can do all of these things in the most perfect yoga leggings.

[00:16:09] Ross: Absolutely. Oh, it's such an inspiration to hear you, you talk about these issues in such an accessible way, Michaela. Thank you. And, I'm curious, when did you discover ACT? Was it in Sweden? Or was it when you came to the

[00:16:46] And I went to anything and everything that I could find with international speakers as well. People like Kelly Wilson, uh, Kirk Strassel, Steve Hayes. I did lots of training with, with other act people, and I just Clearly now, in hindsight, I know I sort of hyper focused on psychology. This is why I can talk about psychology all day long, and why I've been in this career for half my life and still not bored of it.

[00:17:29] And I saw someone who was, it was CBT because you choose between CBT and, and psychodynamic therapy, and I had both. But the CBT practitioner I saw was also very mindfulness based. And I was sitting there as a 20 year old something, you know, who was absolutely time blind. And we were working on, you know, punctuality and things like that in, in the personal therapy.

[00:18:14] That's why I arrived six minutes late for our interview today. and learning things from that psychologist. Watching her in her being, I think, gave me a very different entry into psychology, understanding her mindfulness based practices, the ACT practices. I understand that as a much more helpful softening for me, uh, than what I had with my first.

[00:19:02] My supervisor I had on my first placement after I finished, so in Sweden you do five years of training and then you do a sixth year which is a full year of working, so slightly different. You do some placements whilst you're training for five years, but then you come into a full year of practice. When you effectively graduated from university, So you practice independently, but you have to be overseen a little bit and just, you know, report at the end of the year, are you fit to practice?

[00:19:49] O. T. and we had conversation in the car, you know. It really helped me to realize that, you know, with the neurodivergent brain I have, I have [00:20:00] to be flexible because I cannot function the same way that neurotypicals do. And I have to allow myself that grace. I think it really, really matters how we find our way into practices like ACT or CFT or CBT or whatever therapy practice we have has been so influenced by the influential people who showed us the way, who paved the path for us.

[00:20:37] Know your audience

[00:20:54] And I think some of our therapies are trying to be a little bit too Procrustean, you know, trying to fit the person into the model rather than Stretching the model to fit around the person and that's the bit I've learned from her of Actually, who have I got in front of me? How can I find? processes from the method I'm trained in Be it ACT, be it CFT, be it CBT, be it DBT, be it RODBT, Rhetorically Open Dialectic Behavioural Therapy, be it Behavioural Couples Therapy, be it whatever I'm trained in, how can I take stuff out of my toolbox to serve the person who sits in front of me in an effective, evidence based way that also shows compassion and humanity.

[00:22:09] Ross: Wow. And I love the way you're, you're really focusing on the person in front of you. Because I think in, in coaching, quite often we're thinking, right, I've got this model. I've got this model or as an organization, I've got this leadership framework. I need to, as a leader, I need to fit into this framework. They've got a set leadership framework and that creates a cage around that person. So as coaches and people working with people in business. We're looking to really meet them where they are with all our skills and tools applied flexibly and creatively.

[00:23:04] Doing things flexibly, creatively, innovatively versus also respecting the evidence base and the data. Um, you know, having been to training with people like Glenn Waller talking about therapist drift, so I was really conscious. That I wasn't just making stuff up as I go along, but actually drawing upon the evidence base.

[00:23:21] Michaela: making sure that these are things that have efficacy. And I don't just, you know, become some sort of weird charlatan who makes stuff up because I like that flavour of the month. You know, I still always draw upon what do we know, what do we know works, but what works for whom. I think it's a very important research question that we're thinking a lot more about what works for whom and especially now that we know more about neuroaffirmative practices.

[00:24:22] But that's very different to how we sometimes think of like, how do I need to set up my workplace to make me less anxious? It's very different. That doesn't mean I don't tolerate anxiety, as we'll get on to soon with the spacious adventure. Sometimes that's about courage over confidence, that you have the courage to do hard things and show yourself you have the resources to cope with whatever happens, but I really thought about things differently and that's why we need to constantly keep our finger on the pulse of research and evidence because some of the things I learned 20 years ago when I first came into psychology, some of it is outdated or has been deepened or has been improved upon, even within act.

[00:25:17] Ross: mm, beautiful. Now, Michaela, the time has come, it's a very exciting moment, to ask you for your song choice. So this will be a song that announces your arrival in a room for the next Maybe, say, three months or so. Not forever. And it would announce your arrival in virtual rooms, real rooms, the supermarket, whatever it might be.

[00:25:44] Michaela: So as I told you, I'm not going to pick one song. I'm going to pick a mashup.

[00:25:54] Michaela: Good. And it also shows you how far I've come in my inner acceptance of the neurodivergent [00:26:00] mind that has that rebel streak. Um, I've had sort of my, my Luminar personality profiling shows I have a rebel streak and I used to fight it. By working in the NHS and suppress it and now I just let it run free and I'm so much happier.

[00:26:37] Figuring out when do I need to go up. As in I need to stimulate my brain, I need to stimulate myself to get going. And when do I need to go down, so that I calm the overwhelm, slow down, come to some stillness because I'm overstimulated. And I need to just, that sort of, the physiological sigh. So, I picked my songs to reflect that.

[00:27:20] I sing this at my singing mama group that I take my toddler to. It's a group that is not for the children. It is for the mothers. They come together in a circle. We sing songs. just following the leader and our children play in the middle with toys and then we eat cake. So, you know, it's something for everyone.

[00:28:02] So, it was what I now know from my singing group, uh, a trauma around singing. Because I was told once that I had an awful singing voice and I never sang again. So, shine your light means to me that I allow myself to be the person who I am and shine that. Vibrant energy into rooms. There will be people listening here today who will be provoked by me, I get that.

[00:28:44] I picked Beacon because I love this idea that I can dare to shine my light and other people can follow and other people can do this permission piece for themselves. So, it goes, shine your light. Now I can't remember it without singing it. Shine your light, I'll shine mine too. I see you, you see me, I see you.

[00:29:15] Radiant love like a star is who you are. So it's something to do with how we are allowing ourselves to shine bright or burn bright. So all of this has been, all of my offers in psychology has come together with who I am and the journey I've been on as well. So that's the first part. That's the bit that down regulates me, allowing myself that permission to be accepting who I am.

[00:30:01] And how much work I've done in the somatic exercises over the last few years. So how I bring together psychology of the mind with the connection with the body. I collaborate with nutritionists, yoga teachers, to have that more holistic view of the body. So when the fire starts to burn, it starts to spread, it's a nod to what happens.

[00:30:45] that they've stepped into. People have walked away from toxic environments, left toxic marriages, found new love, found new passion, started new companies, created amazing things, upped their revenue, all sorts of things. Because when a fire starts to burn, it starts to spread. So that's what I want to have.

[00:31:11] Ross: And it will be so. We're going to put so many things out there today, but If anyone wants to make a mashup of those two, then please do get in touch because I think it would be, I think it would be a banger, as the kids call it today.

[00:31:26] Ross: Beautiful.

[00:32:06]

[00:32:10] Ross: Number one, share it with one other person. Number two, subscribe and give us a five star review, whatever platform you're on.

[00:32:46] Thanks to Andy Glenn for his spoon magic and Alex Engelberg for his vocals. Most of all, dear listener, thanks to you. Look after yourselves, peace supers, and bye for now.